International LIFE Pages of the 89th Grand Board of the Aleph Zadik Aleph and 69th International Board of the B'nai B'rith Girls Ryan Dishell | Page 2

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The Art of Setting Goals

When I was a toddler, I had 3 goals in life:!
1) To be a Pokémon Master. !
2) To be taller than my brother. !
3) To spend my entire life at home.!

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I’m 0 for 3. Once upon a time, life was simple. Goals were simple. Hope
was simple. No matter how badly I have wanted science—and the ethics
supporting it—to allow the world to catch and train magical animals, I have
yet to be the very best, like no one ever was. No matter how much milk I
drank (a lot) or vegetables I ate (not a lot), I will forever be the “little”
brother in my family. No matter how much I didn’t want to go to school or
initially cried from homesickness at camp, I ended up spending my
summers away and my days in class. !

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While they will forever be unaccomplished, these goals have taught
me my most valuable lessons. !

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In life, as in BBYO, we set goals for ourselves. We hold ourselves to certain
standards and we set expectations that both motivate us, and disappoint
us. We find ourselves constantly working to achieve what we perceive to be
the end-all be-all of success…and then we move on to the next thing. And
the next thing. And so on. This brings us to 3 Lessons. !

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Let’s begin.!