So many things have happened, yet everything is the same. Yesterday I had my bi-weekly meeting with my therapist, and I think both of us noticed how there had been no progress, which lead me yesterday to ponder "what is progress in a human being?". It's very tempting to use the post-modernist bypass and stating there is no such thing as progress, because values themselves are meaningless. Yet—when I see human beings—I see a spectrum of progress, whether it is in intellectual, moral, physical, emotional or spiritual, so even if it were exclusively in the subjective realm (I don't want to have to argue that it's also objectively real), human progress is real.
I also seem skeptical that you can master your own progress. Most of our development happens unwillingly, as we are challenged out of our comfort zone by things that happen to us in life. An intellectual breakthrough happens because we accumulate sufficient knowledge as to make our current paradigms break down. Certainly one can impede progress by denying, compartmentalizing or rejecting experience, so what would be the opposite of this?—accepting, integrating and embracing experience would be the way in which we progress.
It would seem, then, that progress is always available to us, but we don't master it, we surrender into it.
My therapist wanted me to state some goals for myself, and also to find a group of people with whom I could "be myself". As I reflect upon this, I notice an aversion to goals and also that I've never felt "myself" in a group, but I do feel myself with some people, individually.
I think the intention of having some goals is that I've expressed uncertainty and indecision about everything. If I don't know what I want, I will be forever torn between decisions: should I invest in a long term stay in Spain, or should I keep myself unencumbered so that I can leave painlessly? H0pe's commentary on the matter helps here: I will respond to my moral duty, yet this doesn't preclude me from having goals. The only choice I have to make is between my goals and my duty, after this I can accept my losses (or gains) willingly.
On Friday I went with friends for dinner at a Persian place. One of them said that her father's cancer had gotten worse, and that she would go to Ecuador to take care of him a couple of months. Fortunately she works in academia, and she could have a residence in Quito that would allow here to do this. I commented that it was fortunate she had this possibility, otherwise she might have to quit her job to go take care of her father.
"Oh no, it took me years and years of work to get this job" (with its surprisingly low pay), "I don't know what I would do, but I wouldn't quit if the residence were not a possibility". Sometimes goals and duty will be at odds, but there's no reason why to worry about it prematurely. We gotta do what we gotta do.