How do you measure progress in life? What's the goal?
When I was young, I took it for granted that the goal was to become BIG, or at least to have a big effect. If it's good to be a millionaire, then it's better to be a billionaire. If it's good to have ten employees, then it's better to have a thousand employees. If it's good be famous as an artist, then it's better to be the most famous artist in the world.
And many people I know who do the same as me (running a pay site), when one site is successful, they start another and another and another, going for an Empire. It seems a natural progression, but I wonder if it's not really more of a way to use up all your free time and then some.
Personally I found that once I'd covered my basic needs and gotten comfortable, I started losing the drive needed to expand more in the base world. It was not an easy transition, I had many false starts and changes of mind back and forth. Actually it may have been coincidence these things happened in the same period, after all many people are poor but still have little interest in expansion, and some are wildly successful but still strongly driven to be more so.
I think empire-building is basically a top-dog game. It's a game of who can dominate. How much admiration can you get.
The tricky thing is, if not Big Goals, then what? If you don't feel happy and satisfied, where do you turn for satisfaction? That's way too big a question for a blog, but I guess answers from various people would go to "family", "job satisfaction", "creativity", "love", "religion", "spirituality"...
I think what's common to them are non-material qualities. Very hard to evaluate even for yourself, and especially for others.
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I guess a good term (I don't know if it's been used before) is "soft qualities". By which I mean those things that can't be measured with numbers. Love, beauty, spirit.
10 comments:
Fresh off the press, an interesting story:
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The 1930s repeated.
Personally, I would rather focus on making what I'm making; money is only a means. Due to my job, I've been around wealth; I'm not sure that is a huge motivator; top dog is, winning.
This is an issue for me at present; success used to be selling my art, but only some of what I do will sell; large amounts of what I do are unsaleable, and I've needed to reconcile that, and integrate it into my life. Now, however, success is just looking at the production, sold and unsold, and knowing that much is good; progress was made, risks taken, moving forward. I have far higher standards than to think that money, or sales should be the only acceptable "progress" in life. Maybe I'm getting close to being the artist I always envisioned.
Whew, way too personal.
Bron
Hehe, it easily gets so, doesn't it.
"German billionaire Adolf Merckle threw himself in front of a train after his business empire, ran into trouble in the global financial crisis, his family said Tuesday."
" He is survived by his wife, Ruth, and four children."
There is more to life than business, money, or financial power. This man lost hope because he could not see beyond a business failure.
The most important things were in front of him which were his wife and four children.
Learn to enjoy what you have today for tomorrow is only a promise.
"Progress" is movement from one state to another. The keyword is "movement". You want progress - you need to move, change state. It is progress even if the state is degrading in relation to the same of others.
"Big" is relation to other things, if one wants to get "big" that goal has to have a limit, at least relative, otherwise it has no sense. On the other hand, reaching that limited goal will stop progress which has to be realized as well.
This is all simple. The only thing that interferes and complicates things is ambition for power. Then success, money, recognition become just instruments for obtaining more power. It is a neurotic pathology of the mankind minority.
Dibutil Ftalat put it well.
If you specifically want to know about progress, then you need to identify a beginning state (a), and a target state (b). Progress then is the movement from a to b, which you can usually measure relatively easily once you know a and b.
But your question seems to be more about what to choose as b for yourself? What do people pick as their goals to live a satisfactory life?
The answer to that depends on every person, of course. There are only two universal rules I can think of:
1.) The goal needs to be exciting; and
2.) The goal needs to be believable.
It needs to be exciting in order to inspire you to action. This usually means Big. But then, it also needs to be believable to ensure you don't sabotage yourself with limiting beliefs. This usually means, not too big.
Over time, as you begin to trust in your abilities, your goals can become bigger and more challenging. It's a bit like flexing your muscle.
I think, as modern society takes away much of the need to accomplish, and puts ready made stuff in front of us, we have lost touch with our natural calibration mechanism with regards to setting goals, and working towards them.
People don't understand why rich people, such as Donald Trump for example, continue to measure progress in money even though they already have enough. But at the same time, they never offer anything else to measure it with. If your passion is to build skyscrapers in New York, the city you love, then the number of skyscrapers you built would be a poor way to measure things. You want quality and sustainability too. Money is a great way to measure the whole.
Work is one of our primary needs. If we are deprived from work, either by someone else, or by ourselves, we become depressed. It doesn't help that in our society, due to a sequence of political events during the last 100 years, "work" now has a negative connotation. When in fact, it is one of the things we most desire. Nor does it help that society has somehow programmed many of us to believe that you can only work when someone else gives you the permission. No permission --> unemployment. Don't ask permission. Just do it.
Back to work.
Well said.
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A sub goal of the post is to inspire some to re-evaluate their goals. I think many people do that only very rarely.
"I think what's common to them are non-material qualities. Very hard to evaluate even for yourself, and especially for others."
Perhaps a positive reduction in material goods followed by a regular evaluation of how your non-material gains are advancing? Sounds like a good combination.
Yes indeed.
I make "overall evaluations" sometimes. Essential I think.
I've not exactly reduced my Stuff, but then ten years ago I had nearly nothing, so...
And I think it's less important how much you have than how attached you are to it.
... If you believe you *have* to get rid of stuff to be spiritual, that's just another way of psychological attachment to it.
(ref: _The Disappearance Of The Universe_)
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