What Matters Most.

There are a lot of things that mean a great deal to us in life. Some of these things are temporal, material, or spiritual. A lot of times the things that we consider the most important are really not important at all. I often times think of who i want to be and the things i plan to do in this life. My mind will then go through the various jobs, careers, and hobbies that i think would be pretty sweet to do. I think of the fun i could have and the places i could go. I look at all the wonderful things around me and wonder where should i even start?

     In my life i have family and friends that love to go hunting. They spend a lot of time each year following and watching the elk, around where i live, trying to find out the best place to find them when it comes time for the hunting season. like all other things in life hunting takes practice and skill. It takes time to go out and practice and getting things ready. Many bow hunters will attest to the fact that you need to spend many hours at the range shooting your bow and making sure you can hit your target.

     I once heard a story about two brothers who both enjoyed target shooting. They would go out together and spend a few hours setting up different situations in which you would have to hit various targets. To do so they would have to be focused and skilled. One such scenario was where they set the target on the other side of two trees that were close together, forcing the archer to shoot between the trees and hit the target. Now one brother could do the shot very easily. He seemed to not even notice the trees and just focus on the target. On the other hand his brother for some reason kept hitting those trees and it was getting him really mad. He asked his brother, " how is that you can shoot that target every time and i just keep hitting these dumb trees". His answer was simple but had a huge impact on his life. He said " Its not about the trees is about what I'm aiming for". You see this man knew the importance of looking at the target and only the target. He did not get afraid or distracted by the things around him or the obstacles that seemed to be in the way. He simply looked at the target and took his shot.

     We in our lives have many "trees" that seem to block our "targets". We let life get in front of us and we begin to put our target out of site. We become to preoccupied with whatever we may be doing in life. Some of them are very apparent and seem to make our goals unreachable. Others are more subtle and are as simple as we may have fears that things wont happen they way we want or think. We begin to loose site of what matters most. In my life the things that matter most is my family and friends. I want to have these relationships for not only this life but in the life to come. So i have a goal and now its up to me to focus on the target and take a shot.