How many open goals do you have right now?
Not the ones you are actively working on. The other ones. The ones sitting in the back of your mind, collecting dust while the years pile on. That pair of skinny jeans you refuse to give away because you will wear them again when you lose the weight. That set of paints sitting in the corner of your room because you will start painting again someday. That business idea you keep revisiting in your head, when things are more stable, when the time is right, when you feel ready.
We all have them, and we keep them open like tabs on a browser we never close, convincing ourselves that keeping them open is the same as working on them.
It isn’t.
You Have To Say Yes To Be Saved
There was a man whose town was hit by a terrible flood. The waters rose fast. He climbed to the roof of his house and held on, and he prayed. He prayed for God to save him. For a miracle to come.
A neighbour came by in a rowboat. “Get in; I will take you to safety.”
The man shook his head. “No. God will save me.”
The waters rose higher. A rescue team came by on a motorboat. “Sir, get in. We will get you out of here.”
Again he refused. “God will send a miracle. I am waiting.”
The waters kept rising. A helicopter appeared overhead and dropped a ladder.
“Grab on; this is your last chance.”
He waved them away. “God will come.”
And the waters took him.
When he arrived at the gates of heaven, he looked at God and said, “I prayed. I believed. Why didn’t you save me?”
And God said, “I sent you a rowboat. A motorboat. A helicopter. What were you waiting for?”
Act Now, or That is Our Story
If we don’t act, this can be our story.
The flood is life going by, the years piling on while you wait for the perfect moment.
The man drowning is you, watching your life pass, your goals collecting dust, convincing yourself you will come back to them.
The people offering help are the opportunities knocking on your door at the right moment, the person who showed up, the available resource, the window that opened.
Including this: if you are reading this right now, this is your rowboat. This is someone throwing you a line.
Waiting for God to send a miracle is waiting for the perfect conditions: when I am more stable, when I have more money, when the kids are older, when the time is right.
And dying in the flood is arriving at the end of your life with those goals still open, still dusty, still waiting, still unbegun. Looking back at all the boats you waved away.
The opportunities knock. The doors open. The rowboats come. And we wave them away because it wasn’t the miracle we imagined.
And the years go by.
I looked at my own life recently and got honest about something uncomfortable. I have open goals that have been open for years. Things I keep telling myself I will come back to. And I realised keeping them open indefinitely was its own kind of trap. Because an open goal with no deadline is just a dream with nowhere to go.
So I made a decision.
I am giving every open goal in my life a deadline. A real one. Either I am moving toward it, starting now, starting small, starting with whatever I have, or I am closing it. Permanently. Not because I am giving up. But because I would rather know now that something is not for me than wake up ten years from now and realise I spent a decade waiting to begin.
Clarity is a gift. Even when it hurts.
The Systems I Created
Because wanting to change is not enough.
You need a system. Here is what I put in place.
The Open Goal Audit.
Write down every open goal you have been carrying. Every single one. Get them out of your head and onto paper. Then, next to each one, write honestly: Am I moving toward this, or am I just keeping it alive because letting go feels like failure?The Deadline Rule.
Every open goal gets a deadline. Not a vague “someday.” A specific date. By this date, I will have taken these specific steps, or I am closing this goal and freeing up the mental space it has been occupying.The Start Small Rule.
You don’t have to overhaul your life to start. If you want those jeans to fit, go for a walk today. Watch what you eat this week. Something small is infinitely more powerful than nothing at all. Because small things compound. And years from now you will be grateful you started, even if you started small.The Close With Intention Rule.
If a goal gets to its deadline and you have not moved, close it. Consciously. Not with guilt. With intention. Say this is not for this season of my life. And mean it. Because carrying dead weight disguised as hope is one of the most exhausting things we do to ourselves.
The boats are coming. They have been coming. The question is whether you are going to get in.
Because the flood is not waiting. And neither is your life.
What Else Dropped This Week
Off Script
She Lost Her Mom. Then She Built a Company | Lekha Vyas
Under the Hood
Gloria Steinem: The Legacy She Left Behind
What I’m Reading
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents -Isabel Wilkerson (Finishing)
This book made me question how much of who we become is truly ours, and how much is shaped by the systems we’re born into.
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism (Starting)
A scathing whistleblowing memoir by Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former Director of Global Public Policy at Facebook (now Meta). The book pulls back the curtain on the company's high-level operations, detailing internal decision-making surrounding major global crises, content moderation controversies, and big-tech influence. I want to read this before the movie adaptation of the book comes out, The Social Reckoning.
Things That Happened Around
Warren Buffett’s last lesson as chair: Culture and capital require different guardians
Angela Duckworth Says Successful People Share 1 Habit: They Ask for Help
Note to Self
Life is hard. Some weeks more than others. And some days it feels like the water is rising and the boats have stopped coming, and you are just out there, alone on that roof wondering how everyone else seems to be holding it together.
They aren’t. Not always. We are all in this together, figuring it out, falling behind, starting over, trying again. Nobody has it completely sorted. We are all just showing up as best we can with what we have.
And here is what I want you to remember.
You have more power than you think. More than the circumstances suggest. More than the hard week is telling you. More than the open goals and the dusty dreams and the years gone by are making you feel.
The life you want is not out of reach. It is just waiting for you to decide you are worth the effort of building it.
So take a breath.
You are not behind. You are not too late. You are not alone.
Now get back up. The boats are still coming.
Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.
— Sai Menon
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