A couple of weeks ago, I went to my first archery class.
It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Since my main physical activity, working out, is always intense and fast-paced, I wanted to try something that’s the complete opposite.
I wanted slow movement, slow breath, full focus.
As I arrived there, I immediately got excited like a kid.
The shooting range was almost full.
Some people were obvious beginners, some looked like pros.
Because I arrived early, I was able to sit down and spend some time watching others.
It took only a couple of minutes to realize that archery is a meditative activity. Even beginners seemed like they were able to turn off everything around them. At least for a moment, all that existed was them, their bow and arrow, and the target.
But this time I don’t want to talk about the Zen aspect of archery.
When my instructor arrived, I realized that I wouldn’t be doing my first lesson on the range with others.
He pointed me to the separate area and told me to wait just a couple of minutes until he set up the equipment.
The beginner's area was surrounded by a wall. I later realized that the purpose of the first lesson was to learn safe behavior on the shooting range. They cannot risk a beginner stepping out onto the field while others are shooting, or doing anything to endanger themselves or others.
But the fact that the area was walled off wasn’t actually the thing that caught my eye the most.
I realized there was no target.
In front of the shooting line where the instructor was putting my bow and arrows, there was just another wall with thousands of arrow holes in it. No target.
Suddenly, I felt a strong wave of both physical and psychological discomfort coming over me.
Am I going to spend a whole hour shooting arrows while not knowing what exactly I am shooting at?
Then I looked at the shooting range and all the people there once again. Some had their targets just a couple of feet away from their shooting line. Some had their targets placed at the very end of the range. Some had large targets with multiple rings of different colors. Some had targets a bit bigger than a tennis ball – they basically just had the bulls eye.
But they all had targets. They all knew what they were aiming at.
I surprised myself with how strong my reaction was to realizing I wouldn't be having a target this time.
But then I remembered the last time in my life when I wasn’t aiming at anything, when I had no goal, no target. I was miserable.
One could say that there was less struggle and suffering in my life back then. There was infinitely more comfort in my life at that point, and infinitely fewer worries. One could say that I've had so many more reasons to be miserable in the past couple of years, years when I've been aiming at something.
And that would be true, objectively speaking. And that "truth" would mean something if the whole purpose of this thing called life was to go through it with the least amount of struggle and suffering and maximal comfort possible.
Back then, there were almost no real obstacles that I was facing.
But it’s not just obstacles that I wasn’t facing. I wasn’t facing anything. I had no sense of direction. Nothing that I would do had any purpose behind it. There was nothing to move towards. There was no meaning.
For quite some time now, I’ve been aiming at something. The target has been moving and changing in size and difficulty. But there is always a target. There is meaning.
I was well aware of the fact that having something to aim at was helping me to overcome difficulties that I’ve been facing. But I forgot how miserable life without a target is. I was reminded that no amount of comfort could make up for the absence of a target.
As I was approaching the shooting line to start my lesson, my final reflection was:
"Even if I don't have a real target in today's archery lesson, I know which way to shoot; I know where 'forward' is. In life, when there is no target, you don't know what is forward or backward, what is up or down. You are disoriented. You are completely lost."
While I was having this final thought, the instructor was putting my beginner's target on the wall. I smiled. It was a beautiful day.
Choose your target. Create one. Don't worry about if that's "the right" target for you. You can always change it or adjust it. Even if you don't, life will probably do it for you at some point. Just aim at something. Anything. You don't need to be lost.
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I really enjoyed this post, and your content in whole. I recently subscribed, and your posts have helped me become more emotionally aware of life in total.
This post specifically resonated with me. I did competitive archery for a year or two when I was 16, online school with no friends and nothing to do. When I picked it up, I loved it. But I was never able to put my finger on why I loved it, until now. It truly is a meditative sport and I’m just now processing everything I really learned about myself and about life through doing that sport. Thank you!