Skip to main content

Goals

Setting medium to long term goals is overrated (and even harmful at times). I know how controversial that sounds. But hear me out.

You have this goal and you are working towards it. Come what may you won’t give up. Perseverance. You are a fighter. You don’t give up. You achieve your goal and feel great. You are so proud of yourself. And so are others around you.

So what’s wrong with that? 

I think setting a medium or long term goal is like putting a blinder on. You are focused on that goal to the exclusion of other things. Read that again. Because you have the blinders on, you could miss something that could be even better. It’s exactly like taking a walk with a blinder on. You know your destination (your goal) and you are determined to reach it. You walk and don’t look left and right. And in doing this, you miss some amazing paths which could have led you to an even better destination. 

So living a life based on set goals is limiting. Instead, life should be lived based on fun. Don’t set goals. But instead have fun. Work on projects that are fun. And if something more fun comes along, drop this project (doesn’t have to be permanent drop - perhaps in the future this could be more fun) and take on the new project. Go explore that fork on your road. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

True Essence

My yoga teacher, who knows a lot about me and my story, recently asked me "what do you like about yourself, what is your true essence?". I gave the usual answer that I have been giving myself for most of my life - that I am kind, generous, helpful etc. etc. That was not the answer he was looking for. He said those things are in relation to other people i.e. these traits are what I think other people perceive me as. But what is really MY true essence and what do I like about MYSELF. He gave me a week to think about it. That did get me thinking. I talked to some friends about it over the week. I realised how much of my self-perception is dictated by other people. And it has been like that all my life. What I think of myself is really what I think others think of me. Or what I want others to think of me. But if I take other people out of the equation, what am I? What is my true essence? The more I thought, the more I realised that my true essence is creativity. Looking back...
1 comment
Read more

The limitation of language

Humans developed language as a means of communicating with other tribe members. Language is one of the most important, if not THE most important, reason humans are so successful as a species. It enables us not only to communicate immediate information (e.g. there is a lion in that direction, don't go there) but also form and communicate intricate ideas (e.g. myths, religions). Yuval Hariri in his massively interesting book "Sapiens" talks about how what he calls "fiction" (i.e. stories we humans tell each other) enabled homo sapiens to co-operate in massive numbers (much more than the Dunbar limit of 150) and made us such a successful species. Language was critical in all of that.  I believe the advent of language was what gave the biggest boost to cultural evolution in humans. Humans are the only species that significantly evolve culturally as well as naturally. Cultural evolution is exponentially faster than natural evolution - we homo sapiens effectively ...
1 comment
Read more