A Trip to Aqaba
This is a column I originally published online in September 2008. When you do something like try to make a living as a fiction author, sometimes you may need a little pep talk to keep going. I know I do.
And my apologies for the sheer length of this thing. It’s so very long and lacks eye-catching subheaders. Honestly, who knew we were all going to have to become online typesetters.
Believe it or not, I don’t plan to become an inspirational speaker. Um, duh! 🙂
Do you have a goal — something you’ve always wanted to accomplish — that’s so great, you’ve never really thought you could pull it off? The whole thing just seemed impossible, too far out of reach to be attained — and you just didn’t know how you could do it.
Achieving Your Goals
Actually, anyone can achieve great goals. It’s a matter of taking everything one step at a time.
Identify the steps necessary to reach the goal;
Write them down roughly in the order you think they should be done;
Consider what preliminary work you need to do to accomplish each step and add it to your list;
Identify benchmarks on your calendar for completing certain key steps and be prepared to reevaluate and change your approach, if you feel you’re going off course; and finally
Just do them. (This, as they say, is the hard part.)
Too simplistic? Not really. All you need to do to reach a goal is figure out what it takes to make it happen and do it. Talent can be a crucial part of it, and luck can help, too. But, more important than anything, you must be persistent and follow through on your plans until you get the thing accomplished.
This may not be an efficient process. You may identify steps, start doing things, then realize you need to take a class, read some books or take other actions before you can go further. It may turn out the steps need to be done in a different order than you expected. The important thing is to make the necessary adjustments, with the purpose — reaching your goal — in mind.
It Won’t Happen in a Day
One problem with great goals is they generally can’t be achieved overnight. One must work toward such goals step-by-step, day-by-day, methodically and purposefully. This isn’t always exciting. Sometimes it’s tedious and dull. But if you’re passionate about the goal you’re trying to reach, even the dullest work carries some level of excitement in it.
Thus, I was intrigued by Steve Jobs’ comment during the inspirational speech he gave at Stanford University’s 2005 commencement exercises, about looking in the mirror and asking himself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” I had to wonder about that remark. If I knew it was my last day, I’d also know I didn’t have time to meet many of my goals. Which means I would probably drop a lot of things I’m doing, in favor of things that provide more immediate gratification.
It’s hard to say exactly what I’d do if I knew it was my last day. But, if I were to ask myself a question every day, it would probably be, “Am I doing something today that I genuinely care about and will bring me closer to fulfilling my goals?”
Maybe I’m splitting hairs here and really asking the same question Steve Jobs did, in a different way. My only point is, you can’t build Rome in a day, and you can’t achieve your dreams in a day, either. Not if you dream big.
Achieving Goals is Not All Thrills
Your goals may be exciting, but what you do on any given day to achieve them may not be. Sometimes it feels like drudgery. Sometimes it feels like you’ve hit a brick wall and can’t get past it. You may experience failure and setbacks at times. Sometimes the goals feel so elusive, you worry that you’re wasting your time pursuing them at all.
I was reminded of this while watching what has become one of my favorite movies — Lawrence of Arabia. I saw it last year for the first time and was amazed at the gorgeous cinematography, the intelligent dialogue, and the excellent story — a plot so well-constructed, it doesn’t feel like a four-hour movie at all. (In contrast, I’ve sat through at least one 90-minute movie — a Godart film and not one of his best — that felt like it lasted an eternity.)
I went to see Lawrence of Arabia again this year, slightly concerned that its impact might be lessened upon second viewing. My qualms were entirely misplaced. The movie was even better the second time, because (knowing something of what was to come) I was able to draw so much more from the film’s subtext.
Achieving Goals Can Involve Hardship and Risk
For those who haven’t seen the movie, the story is about Thomas Edward (T.E.) Lawrence (played by Peter O’Toole, in his first major film appearance), who played a unique role during World War I. Lawrence volunteers to leave his mundane clerk’s post with the British military in Cairo and travel across the desert on a nebulous fact-finding mission for the Arab Bureau. He is sent to find Prince Feisal (so ably portrayed by Alec Guinness and “observe the situation” (which is that the Arabs are getting creamed in battle by the better-equipped Turks).
When he finds Feisal, Lawrence has a choice: toe the military line and encourage the Arabs to retreat to a place where the British can continue to help them (on British terms and under their control) or defy orders and conventional wisdom and lead a select group of Arabs across a supposedly uncrossable desert to attack the Turkish-occupied city of Aqaba — a strategically important location for the British, which can’t be taken by sea because it’s defended on that side by massive artillery . . . but is defenseless from overland assault, because (presumably) no sane person would attempt the desert crossing.
An Arab attack on Aqaba by land would not only completely blindside the Turks and put Aqaba into Arab (and, ostensibly, British-friendly) hands, but would represent a collaboration of several diverse Arab tribes, who up to that point, hadn’t gotten along all that well with one another. For Lawrence to ignore his orders and lead the Arabs in such an attack would be a bold (arguably, treasonous) move, from a military and political standpoint (at least, in the movie version, which is not quite the true story). So, what did Lawrence do? Well, he didn’t tell the Arabs to fold their tents and take refuge with the British. (Or he wouldn’t have become Lawrence of Arabia, would he?) Of course, he told them to attack Aqaba by land. And did they succeed? Naturally. (Or they wouldn’t have made the movie.) Was it easy? Hardly. Crossing miles of scorching, barren desert by camel would be anything but easy. But it was done — step-by-step, day-by-day.
“Be Bold and Mighty Forces Will Come to Your Aid” — Goethe
In Lawrence’s plan to attack Aqaba, I saw a metaphor for the bold risks people with great goals must take in order to achieve something far bigger than they imagine themselves capable of accomplishing. For me, the long, arduous trip to Aqaba represented the day-in, day-out struggle of moving toward those goals, step-by-step, despite all obstacles and the seeming impossibility of reaching them.
In the interests of full disclosure, the real T.E. Lawrence didn’t think up the Arab uprising against the Turks all by himself — that’s Hollywood’s influence. However, he was a real person who actually helped unite the Arabs and lead them in an overland attack on Aqaba and guerilla attacks on other strategic locations. According to the BBC, “he was a superb tactician and became a highly influential theoretician of guerrilla warfare. His small but effective second front mined bridges and supply trains and tied down enemy forces.”
My point (yes, I’m getting ‘round to that) is that sometimes when your goals seem impossible, when your task seems too big to handle, you simply have to start and keep going. Sometimes (like the arduous trek across the desert to Aqaba) it will be dull, sometimes difficult, and sometimes you won’t be sure it was even a good idea you started. But with planning, persistence, patience and a methodical approach, you can do things you never thought possible.
And when you achieve your greatest goals, don’t let success go to your head. In the movie, Lawrence did — and he ended up paying for it.
PS: Okay. There might be a few eye-catching subheaders. :)
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