Bringing Myself to Account

19 Mulk 162 B.E. February 24-25, 2006 A.D.

In The Hidden Words Baha’u’llah says: “O SON OF BEING! Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning; for death, unheralded, shall come upon thee and thou shalt be called to give account for thy deeds.” (Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words # 31). This quote came to mind this morning when I checked my yahoo e-mail account and saw the prompt title (Weekly Achievements, 2/25/2006, 12:00 am) from the Sterling Quill journaling group. What brought the quote to my mind when I saw the prompt title is this: Last night, before I went to bed, a friend called with the news that another friend had died and her funeral would be today at 10:00 a.m.

Contemplating the two events I realized that I need to look closer at bringing myself to account. Often I look at the material goals and the writing goals I have set for the week and consider whether or not I have achieved them. However, there spiritual goals that I set for myself each day and week as well. I do not write these spiritual goals down because sometimes I do not (or at least tell myself) I do not know how to put them into words. However, the spiritual goals need writing down in concrete terms of actions; the reason if I can not write the goal in concrete terms how do I know if I have achieved that goal.

Since I did not write the spiritual goals in concrete terms last Sunday, I can not really tell if I achieved them. I think I may have achieved the spiritual goals, but without knowing what actions were to indicate achievement I am unable to tell for certain. This coming week I will down the spiritual goal and the action that indicates I have achieved that goal. This brings me to another thought, my writing goal is to write between 6,000 and 8,000 words a day. I have not been putting down the concrete actions that would indicate I achieved that goal either. So before I post the goals for the upcoming week, I need to set concrete terms that would indicate achievement of those goals.