Insight #161
“Now I should be able to hit it!” (Created with Microsoft Copilot). . .
Have you heard of stretch goals? (Of course you have. It was the flavor of the year not so long ago in all buzz-worthy businesses.) Well, my goals are still stretch goals. They are stretching further and further away.
At least they were until my son made me watch Viking movies. The gory fight scenes reminded me of something that I learned as a kid, but have failed to act on as an adult. No, not the bloody fighting, but the aiming higher.
Vikings preferred close-up ax combat. That’s not quite true. They loved close-up ax combat. (Something to do with getting into Valhalla sooner rather than later.) But their Anglo-Saxon foes preferred to shoot arrows at them from a safe distance, an out-of-ax-reach distance. How refreshingly sane. (Or maybe they had no Valhalla to look forward to.)
Here’s the bit I forgot, even though kiddie-me played with a bow and arrows. Archers don’t aim at the target. They aim above it. (I suspect few people in gun-loving USA know this. Unless you have let fly an arrow yourself, you will assume that the arrow, like a bullet, will fly almost straight at the target. Not so.)
The further away the archer is from the target, the higher he aims. And the further away, the more she stretches her bow.
Silly me. I have been aiming too low to hit my far-out goals. And then, in frustration, I have chosen new targets, ones too close to matter, too below the mark to make a real impact.
From now on, I think I’ll make like an Anglo-Saxon. I’ll play it safe. I’ll aim slightly higher at goals further out, even if it means a bit more stretching.
Else I will have to ax my up-close piddly little goals once again.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
. . .