You meet an impossible standard, then raise it

Come, let us understand the design of this, calmly, as a thing to see rather than judge. A goal that recedes as you approach was never meant to be reached — you meet the standard and in that instant raise it, so the achievement that was the summit becomes the base of a taller climb; a standard built to move further off each time you near it is not a high standard but a device for ensuring you never arrive, a machine for withholding satisfaction from yourself. The withholding is the point, and it is worth asking why — if this were about excellence you would pause at the summit and take it in, but you deny yourself the summit the instant you reach it, and that denial serves something: protection from the vulnerability of being satisfied, a belief that to rest is to fall behind, a rule that you may not have what you have not endlessly earned. And let an achievement be an achievement — stop, and receive it — when you meet the standard, do not raise it; stop, and let the accomplishment be complete, for the arrival is available only in the moment just after you reach the summit, and the pause, held against the habit, teaches the mind the one thing the ceiling was built to prevent: that you are allowed to arrive. What have you achieved lately that you refused to let count?