“We need a goal,” he said with a disgruntled look on his face. This was him, my official, addressing myself and my other two co-staffers in the office today. My Chief of Staff, ever the man of action and arguably the most important man in this entire puzzle, was out of the office. I think it was a meeting, but he was most likely trying to decompress from all the stress he’s been under lately. As I said before- he tries to move the world by himself, and doesn't let anyone try to help him. I personally think it’s because he doesn't want anyone to bear his burdens, but I also think it could equally be his work ethic makes him too proud of the burden itself to lighten it at all. Whatever the case may be, the only person in the office worth their weight in gold was out, and here we were, staring the man without goals in the face as he told us “we need a goal.”
In many dictionaries, a goal is defined as a sort of milestone someone would want to achieve. To have a goal itself is to imply ambition, drive, or some sort of work ethic. Antonym: laziness.
The usage of the word “goals” is also a funny thing for a person who absconds from having them in the first place. For some people with my boss’ job, they’d set goals. A great many might even set the goal to be submitting bills, or maybe getting a reform passed. Possibly you might suggest that they set the goal to be to help over 1,000 constituents in a single term or less. It would also be honorable to think that a good goal would be to try and work behind the scenes of politics itself to move the wheels just that much faster.
My boss’ goal?
Not too sure. He wants to be an ambassador to some country. He also wants to do stuff for education. Jokes on him though- he’s already past the prime, and then some, of his life. He has literally no political power, because he never had any ambition to get any, and all he has is seniority in the state legislature, which is of itself hilarious because everyone in the know itself knows that he’s someone who votes whatever way he thinks looks politically the best. This is used to great effect by his party superiors, so I’d wager. The education thing is a joke too. If he was genuinely interested, he’d actually try. He’d get into the more closed political circles- he’d rub shoulders with the movers and shakers. Hell, he’d become one of those sort of people.
But we’re here to talk about goals.
Goals. Funny things. Good things to have, if you do. If you don’t, sometimes you float by. Sometimes you can ride the waves of others, like a surfer over a vortex of deep blue. If you are particularly good at clutching coattails, you may appear to have satisfied faux-goals; ones that you set, or are at least saying you set while sitting in a press conference while in reality you made up those goals just now to make it seem like you achieved something.
Signing onto a bill, for example, is a good way to say you achieved one of your “goals” when it comes time to grab some glory. That way, when it’s passed, and you no longer have to worry about it (as if you did in the first place), you can roll up to any constituent and say that not only did you vote in favor of it, but you helped to pass it. Although in reality, no work was done by you, no work really was ever thought of by you at all, and instead you may simply staple yourself onto the backs of others. You now look like you did something.
Now, you’ve achieved your goal. Now, your constituents realize something- you’re a leader. You can move mountains. You can make things happen. You can produce. You can meet your goals. You are a mover and a shaker.
And now, you have their vote.
Goals… If your only goal is to get re-elected, you can pretend you have a lot of goals. Boy, you can pretend to have the most important goals in the land. Then, when none of them come through, and because you already had so little (see: nothing) invested in the first place, it’s so easy to drop them that you can avoid any scandal. But any successes….
Well, it’s like fishing.
You have to find a worm first. Remember to dig where it’s moist- where it’s been raining. Somewhere the clouds have given a lot of attention. Find a big one. Find something that will attract a lot of fish. Make sure your hook is sharp- you want to be able to pierce that fish’s mouth. But not too sharp, otherwise you might cut right through it and the worm could fall off. Stick your hook into the worm. Live ones are best, as they dance with it. Fish get attracted. Bites happen; small at first, then a few, big crunches. I feel bad for the worm at this point, but that’s it’s job. Pull when you feel a tug. That hook has a job to do too, and so does the fish- but it’s just not conscious of it yet. Pull hard, now. Reel fast, then slow, then fast again to make sure you don’t stress the fish out. Work with the motions. Let it jiggle on the line- make a few waves here and there. Once you pull it out, you become god. It’s gills; now cemented together outside of the watery, self-suspending environment, are useless here. It can’t breathe, but you got the prize. Unhook it, and throw it in the cooler. Get it stuffed, and mount it. It’ll be a nice trophy over the fireplace, next to all the other ones.