In order to fully achieve a goal, you must know what the goal is so that you can know when you have achieved it. You may achieve goals that you are unaware of achieving, but these goals won’t be fully achieved because you will be unaware of achieving them. In this case you might continue striving to achieve goals that have already been achieved. The misuse of time here is obvious. In fact this hypothetical represents the actual situation of the world, whose Goal of Resolution has already been achieved but not yet recognized, and so immeasurable striving toward unrecognized goals continues.

There are an endless number of goals and outcomes that may be striven toward in this world, broadly such as pleasurable experiences, power, healing, helpfulness, wisdom, love, release, etc. To prioritize one’s efforts, a useful principle is to focus these efforts on goals and outcomes that are in one’s best interests. When correctly defined this means goals and outcomes that when achieved – and also in the process toward achievement – will result in well-being or happiness—not only one’s own but the well-being or happiness of all impacted by the process and result. Otherwise it is likely that a goal or outcome will have to be reformulated and striven toward again, and that the unwellness caused in striving toward a goal or outcome not in one’s best interests will have to be undone. The misuse of time in this situation is also obvious.

Thus determining what goals and outcomes are in your own best interests in any situation is essential to meaningfully act in this world. But this determination requires knowledge of what would result in well-being or happiness not just for oneself but for all involved. Fortunately you have a Guide who has such Knowledge, and Whose Purpose is to share this with you when you request it so that you learn to recognize what is in your best interests. To remember to ask, you simply need to conceive and perceive each situation clearly, a skill this Course is intended to develop.

If you misperceive a situation through conceiving it in a way that isn’t in your own best interests, i.e., that forgets to ask for the Guidance that knows what your best interests are, then the achieving of your goals will suffer from the misuse of time that has been described. In every situation that you misperceive, you will not recognize the outcome that would truly bring you well-being or happiness. If you realize that you do not yet recognize your own best interests, you can be taught what they are. The idea for today is a step toward opening your mind so that such learning can progress.

The exercises for today require much more honesty than you are accustomed to using. A few subjects, honestly and carefully considered in each of the five practice periods that should be undertaken today, will be more helpful than a more cursory examination of a large number. Two minutes are suggested for each of the mind-searching periods which the exercises involve.

Today’s practice periods begin with repeating today’s idea, followed by searching the mind, with closed eyes, for unresolved situations about which you are currently concerned. The emphasis should be on uncovering the outcome you want in any given situation. You will quickly realize that you have a number of goals in mind as part of most desired outcomes, and also that these goals are on different levels (inside and outside of yourself, inside others, etc.), and that they often conflict.

Name each situation that occurs to you, and enumerate carefully as many goals as possible that you would like to be met in its resolution. The form of each application should be roughly as follows:

“In the situation involving _____, I would like _____ to happen, and _____ to happen,” and so on.

Try to cover as many different kinds of goals or hopes related to resolving the situation as may honestly occur to you, even if some of them do not appear to you to be directly related to the situation, or even to be inherent in it at all.

If these exercises are done properly, you will quickly recognize that you have placed a large number of hopes, goals, and even demands on each situation that have nothing to do or are only tangentially connected with it. You will also recognize that many of your hopes and goals are contradictory, that you have no unified outcome in mind that will bring about well-being or happiness, and that you must experience disappointment in connection with some of your hopes and goals however the situation turns out.

After covering the list of as many hopes and goals as possible for each unresolved situation that crosses your mind, say to yourself:

“When I misperceive, I do not recognize my own best interests in this situation”

and go on to the next.