There are so many useful goals for a life. There seems to be one for every occasion, all so very useful. To be a success, to raise fine children, to travel the world, to follow pleasure where it leads, to save souls… 

My goals have been high, now they are not so lofty: to write one beautiful poem; to avoid hurting those I love; to smile more often; to become human before I die. 

I had thought there was a bigger secret, and so went looking. There are so many useful goals for a life. Lay your hands to a task, and see what comes of it. Put your mind to a puzzle and see if the pieces fall into place. Learn a language, open it up like a birthday present, like a birth, and taste its flavor on your tongue. Learn to love and be loved, to leave and be left. Climb as high as you possibly can and see if your fingers, reaching eight feet higher, touch anything besides air. Stand on your head. Stand on your own two feet.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: 
unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

It is not all vanity, not all in vain… you say you failed, but even the most junior scientist knows one only fails when nothing is learned, and the only way to learn nothing is to hide your eyes in your hands. We are children of the Empirical Age, you only need to peek between your fingers, and the experiment has been worth the effort. 

For in much wisdom is much grief: 
and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. 

With so many useful goals available to us, it is difficult to embrace the greatest one of all, the simple attempt to understand, with as much clarity and accuracy as possible, with as much humility and compassion as possible, what it means to be alive, to live this life (if you are young) or whyever you have lived it (if you are old). To hold pain and doubt as near to your heart as you do joy and sudden certainty. Knowing that opening your eyes to sorrow is the only way to open your eyes to delight — you only have one set of eyes, my friend: if they are closed, they are closed, and if they are open, they are open — If you accept a greater challenge and want some kind of knowledge that is not simply book-knowledge, but the kind that comes from muddy boots and frostbitten fingers, you must look unflinchingly at the darkness inside of you, allow your eyes to grow accustomed to it, that you might then make out a little light.

Doesn't matter which little goal you choose, it is as empty as Ecclesiastes, and as full.There are so many useful tools to know yourself: meditations, therapies, exercises, readings… And in the end, with some persistence and some success, you may hold in your hand a small jewel of the self that you might then offer another, that he or she not be merely a mirror of your self, that you not be merely a mirror of him or her. 

These are tools to encounter your Self. Meditations, therapies, exercise… some hope they will cure the pains of living, try to bring some small relief. But there are no tools which will excuse you from those pains, none that can remove the changes which cause anguish, the kisses which fill the heart, or the absences which leave it emptied. There is no way to drop the cross you were born with and that you bear; but you certainly can learn how to carry it more efficiently. And if you stand a bit straighter, if you learn how to walk under a load, if you expend less energy trying to avoid the struggle… 

The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness: 
and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all.
Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; 
and why was I then more wise?

If you would feel your feet well planted on the dust of the earth, feel every moment of your passage through this body from arrival to departure, then there is no practice but to accept it all, open your eyes, allow the blows of the world to soften you, and become human. The ocean of events washes you, pulls sand from beneath your feet, as its waves murmur accept, accept. 

Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?

Tomorrow, a feast for the eyes.