69. Awareness As A Goal

We want to be successful, so we are always thinking about our goals. We reflect on which goals to set. We measure our progress towards them. We often achieve them through careful self-control. We believe that happiness is only possible if we obtain the success that reaching our goals seems to promise.

All of our actions are devoted to this cause. We measure and evaluate and plan everything we do for the purpose of fulfilling our goals. These goals might be significant projects that will take months or years to complete, but they can also be so small that we don’t even realize they are goals. Our compulsion towards measurement and progress is so strong that we might even go so far as to plan out our spare time to achieve the best possible outcome, even if it is just to maximize the pleasure we experience.

Our focus on goals can also creep into our efforts to become more aware of ourselves and the world around us. We can come to see awareness itself as a goal we have to achieve. We want to become fully aware, so we formulate a plan to get there, and we manipulate our actions towards implementing that plan.

But in doing so, we work against ourselves. In order for our awareness to expand broadly and deeply, our attention must be open and free. But attachment to a specific desire will take control of our attention and reduce its freedom to explore. Even if we want awareness, justice, or goodness itself, we can actively bar ourselves from these things by becoming attached to them.

When our attention is largely free, our awareness grows steadily and the necessity of compassion becomes more clear. We cannot force awareness or compassion into our possession through planning or any kind of control. They must arise on their own, and once they do, we will no longer seek to manipulate our actions towards this or that particular goal. We will instead act from compassion to meet needs and create joy for ourselves and others.