In some instances, it may be good to be introspective and to measure how much progress we are making toward our chosen goals. For example, we can keep a check on how many pages we read or write in a week, with hopes of maintaining a constant output, or of increasing that output. That is better than getting mad at ourselves all the time and asking, “Why don’t I read more?” The measuring can be practical, and it can easily stimulate us to greater efforts.
We can measure achievements on different levels. For example, we can keep a check on how effectively we communicate with others, not only on conventional levels but on subtle levels.
In brief, we can create goals and set up motives in ourselves as we go along. When we do this, we are making good use of “freedom of the will.” This may stimulate us to greater effort, and may possibly release inner energies. It may enable us to use our normal energies more efficiently. We may stop actions that are wasteful and give up doing things that do not take us in the direction of our chosen goals.
We may feel a deep sense of tragedy when we see others clinging to “false-to-self” goals that inhibit the capacity to love and lead to personal unhappiness, defeat, and discordant relationships with people around us.
Groups may also set up constructive goals and measure the progress they are making toward attaining them. Some of these goals are sanity, peace, democracy, good will, freedom, etc. Truly, they are expressed in abstract terms whose meanings are not too well defined. But we perhaps do need “catch-all” words that can take on added meaning as we grow in understanding. The meanings are partly in us. They are partly in books that have been written and in discoveries that have been made, and are going to be made in the future. These abstract words can guide us in the direction we want to go. They can stand for things we honestly believe are worthwhile.
The welfare of the most wretched and unhappy individual is, to some extent, the concern of those who possess good fortune and happiness. Just as certain individuals (doctors and nurses), who enjoy health, may devote their attention to the sick, those who appreciate the value of peace and freedom may devote their lives to strengthening the forces of peace and freedom throughout the entire world.