Most things that are worth doing involve hard work. Achieving goals and chasing dreams are rarely easy paths to follow, requiring a certain mental, emotional and sometimes physical strength. However, it is important to always remember that even the strongest of us need to incorporate rest into our routines. You can’t get stronger without a period of recovery.
Enjoy the weekend, you’ve earned it!
If you find yourself in a bind and you don’t know what to do, sometimes the best act of kindness is just to be present. Simply being there can make all the difference. 
Things may not be perfect, but they are also not so bad if you look around. Spring is on the way and there is no one quite like you in the universe.
The challenges and disappointments we face make the great times even more wonderful.
Do you ever feel like if you could just get that one break or breakthrough everything would come together? Maybe you are not so far off, maybe your goal is closer than it seems. Consider that you already have everything you need inside of you to accomplish your dreams.
Keep pressing forward, you got this!
Never mistake arrogance for talent or authenticity. Staying humble and being grateful for every step of your journey is more important than being the best or comparing your path to the journeys of others. You’re amazing just the way you are, and through good actions your light will shine.
Be courageous in your humility, never boastful or arrogant at the expense of others.
Desire paths are those trodden, foot created trails you sometimes see across open spaces representing places that lack a proper paved sidewalk or footpath that people (and or goats) use to make their journeys more efficient. Perhaps they signal a certain yearning to rebel against the modern world, forge your own path and thumb your nose at the algorithms of urban planning. On one hand, they are a form of active resistance, dividing planted grassy knolls and designated open spaces, but on the other, they are literally perhaps the “path of least resistance” making traveling across these spaces perhaps easier and less time consuming. Desire paths are the physical manifestation of one of the paradoxes of being human – a longing to be your own, individual person, guided by your own desires, intuition and knowledge that is better than anyone else’s for your experience; however, longing to belong and fit in with others, to experience the stages of life in their proper order and to share your life’s path with others. Perhaps there is no real solution other than finding balance between our yearning for individuality and belonging, and maybe updated urban planning algorithms.
What is your desire path?
What are you doing with your life? Perhaps consider that you don’t always need to have an answer to this question. Sometimes, you might find yourself embarking on thrilling adventures. Other times, you might just be doing what you must to get by. It takes a long time to figure it out, and what might work for awhile may change and transform. It’s ok if you don’t know, and it might even be ok if you never know.
It is perfectly acceptable to spend some time wandering.
Well, now that February is over and March has begun spring is just around the corner. This is the perfect time to reassess projects and goals started at the beginning of the year and recommit or find something new altogether. Alternatively, just enjoy the weekend!
Will March bring new goals and objectives, or will you just enjoy the ride?
By the time February rolls around, the sparkle of the festive season is long gone, and the hopes of the new year start to feel a bit stale. Also, in many places, February has the worst weather out of the year (climate change related spring fake-outs notwithstanding). So, maybe whoever set up the way we keep track of time way back when felt the same way? Perhaps!
Throughout human history, people in different cultures and places had different conceptions of how to track the passage of time. The calendar most of us are familiar with is the Gregorian calendar, created in 1582 under the direction of Pope Gregory XIII, who was trying to solve the problem that seasons do not always change in formulaic ways and that it takes Earth 365.24219 days to revolve around the sun – making the possibility for calendrical wonkiness quite high.
So then, why is February so short? Actually, this time you can’t really blame a pope. The origins of the calendar take us to the eighth century BC, when the smaller Roman world was organized on the calendar of Romulus – ten months of the year beginning with March on the vernal equinox. Winter was mostly unaccounted for, so you had about two months of calendrical void. To solve the issue, King Numa Pompilius added two months – January and February, and roughly organized the calendar to lunar cycles. This made more sense and you could finally schedule winter time appointments! Pompilius and other people at the time apparently thought that even numbers were unlucky and when they hashed everything out decided that if there had to be an unlucky month in order to have 355 days in a year, it should be the shortest. By the time Julius Caesar reorganized the calendar to come to 365 days on a solar-based model, the twenty-eight day short month of February was here to stay. I suppose that over a millennia everyone from the pre-Roman Republic kings to Renaissance Popes basically agreed that this time of year is a bit of a bummer, keeping the month to 28 (sometimes 29) days a year.
Perhaps take solace in the fact that historically, February has always kind of sucked?
This week has been unseasonably warm in the U.K. with record-setting temperatures. The weather has been quite lovely, especially compared to this time last year when the country was blanketed with a layer of snow and engulfed in grey clouds. Some people are excited, but it is hard not to feel uneasy under the spectre of last fall’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report warned that if we, humanity, do not make big changes to combat the worst effects of climate change, we would reach a point of no return in twelve years. So far, Goat of the Day has been a light-hearted blog with good vibes, and I don’t meant for the good vibes to be extinguished by anxiety about climate change. Rather, channel the positivity and sunshine to take action – cycle, walk or use public transportation whenever possible. Make it clear to policy makers in your town or city that we need more efficient infrastructure in order to reduce our carbon footprints. Buy less stuff of better quality, and opt for reusables over disposables. Even consider hiring a local herd of goats to tend your lawn rather than relying on mowers and pesticides. The world is a marvelous place, and we owe it to ourselves and each other to keep it that way.
You can enjoy the sunshine and be concerned for the future at the same time.
Goat of the Day 