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Verse Diversions: Rainer Maria Rilke Remembrance and Striving against Better


I like New Year’s resolutions, and long-term goals and setting one year, five year and even retirement plans. And yes, I’m acutely aware of how long I have before retirement and that this is not healthy to pine for at my age. This is who I am. But is it who I want to be?


Long-term goal setting isn’t the best practice for a person who is constantly striving to be better and never quite able to reach the mark. Yes, I also know Matthew 6:34 by heart, but I am a flawed person. I carry around these ugly friends called guilt and fear of failure.


But, what if this year I made targeted my goals towards getting rid of these guys? And maybe also cut back on the goals. Any other perfectionists out there sick of not meeting their impossible marks? Well, let me take you on a little self-reflection journey on why my extreme goal setting may not be the healthiest start to the New Year.


There is a famous poet by the name Rainer Maria Rilke who I love. I’ll be honest, I don’t know a lot about him (and yes, I also thought he was a she at first). He lived from 1875-1926, wrote primarily in German (thank-you Wikipedia) and everything I have read by him makes me reconsider the deepest questions of who I am (when in English, of course).


Rilke wrote a poem called “Remembrance” (translated by many from German) that I came across when researching favorite poems for the #authorschallenge2019. When I found this version, I could not stop reading it over, and over again: