To swim for a goal or float with the tides of existence.
A moment of your time I ask, to widen your perspective and influence your journeyā¦
But please keep in mindā¦
To presume to point someone to the right and ultimate goal ā to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction is something only a fool would take upon himselfā¦
I am no fool, but I respect the sincerity in wondering the path of life. I ask you though, to remember that all advice can only be a product of the person who gives it. What is truth to one may be disaster to another. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine; as such, attempting to give specific advice, would be too much like the blind leading the blind.
āTo be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ātis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles ā¦ ā
And indeed, is that not the question? Whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goalā¦ It is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time whether we acknowledge it not. I ask you to think of any decision youāve ever made which had a bearing on your future; I may be wrong, but I donāt see how it could have been anything but a choice however indirect ā between the two things Iāve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.
But why not float if you have no goal? It is unquestionably better to enjoy the floating than to swim in uncertainty. So how do we really find a goal? Not a castle in the stars, but a real and tangible aspiration. How can we be sure weāre not after the ābig rock candy mountain,ā the enticing sugar-candy goal that has little taste and no substance?
The answer ā and, in a sense, the tragedy of life ā is that we seek to understand the goal and not the person. We set up a goal which demands of us certain things: and we do these things. We adjust to the demands of a concept which CANNOT be valid. When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective has changed. Itās not the fireman who has changed, but you. Each person is the sum total of their reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different person, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.
So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?
The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all. Thereās very little sense in my trying to give it up to you in the proverbial nutshell, because Iām the first to admit my absolute lack of qualifications for reducing the meaning of life to a few paragraphsā¦
If youāre genuinely satisfied with what you are and what youāre doing, then perhaps give my advice a wide berth. (Let sleeping dogs lie.) But back to the answerā¦ As I said, to put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES.
But donāt misunderstand me. I donāt mean that we canāt BE firemen, bankers, or doctors ā but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal. In every human, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires ā including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that oneās life will be MEANINGFUL. An individual has to BE something; we have to matter.
As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: an individual must choose a path which will let their ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of their DESIRES. In doing this, they are fulfilling a need (giving themselves identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal), they avoid frustrating their potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on their self-development), and in turn avoiding the terror of seeing their goal wilt or lose its charm as they draw closer to it (rather than bending ourselves to meet the demands of that which we seek, we have bent our goals to conform to our own abilities and desires).
In short, we have not dedicated our lives to reaching a pre-defined goal, but we have rather chosen a way of life we KNOW we will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important. And it seems almost ridiculous to say that a person MUST function in a pattern of their own choosing; for to let another man define your own goals is to give up one of the most meaningful aspects of life ā the definitive act of will which makes a person an individual.
Letās assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course). And letās assume that you canāt see any real purpose in any of the eight. THEN ā and here is the essence of all Iāve said ā you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH.
Naturally, it isnāt as easy as it sounds. Youāve lived a relatively narrow life, a vertical rather than a horizontal existence. So it isnāt any too difficult to understand why you seem to feel the way you do. But a person who procrastinates in theirĀ CHOOSINGĀ will inevitably have their choice made for them by circumstance.
So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.
And thereās the crux. Is it worth giving up what I have to look for something better? I donāt know ā is it? Who can make that decision but you? But even by DECIDING TO LOOK, you go a long way toward making the choice.
Good luck on your journey, for isnāt that where this life really leads us?
- Words of interpretation from the advice of dead philosophers.
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