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If you search on a search engine for "no goals" or "life without goals" you get some sites that emphasize the importance of setting and achieving goals, but there are some other voices who say that setting goals is often an issue for them, so they try to live without goals.
 
Some of the problems they indicate are that goals often end up being achieved differently or on a different schedule, so it seems pointless to set goals, or they can get things done without making it in to a "goal".
 
I was curious if you've seen this philosophy and experimented with it: what are your opinions on "living without goals"?
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8 comments:
Harambe on scored.co
8 months ago 5 points (+0 / -0 / +5Score on mirror )
>Some of the problems they indicate are that goals often end up being achieved differently or on a different schedule, so it seems pointless to set goals, or they can get things done without making it in to a "goal".

Sounds jewish.

Knowledge of scope and what you can reasonably achieve within a certain timeframe is one thing. Not setting goals at all shows no control over yourself, no awareness of the flow of time to the degree that you can have accurate estimates on how long something will take...essentially, not setting goals is lowIQ behavior.
JohnCandle6 on scored.co
8 months ago 2 points (+0 / -0 / +2Score on mirror ) 1 child
If you don't pick exactly what you want in any part of your life then you'll end up with anything, the less detailed you are about what you want, the more variability there is of where you end up with; or worse, you wake up 40 years later and realize your life is the exact same as it was 40 years ago.

I do not recommend being goalless because that's the equivalent of just letting things fall on your lap, and eventually you sit down and think about what you would have gotten if you actually thought about what you wanted, feels like hell.

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With that said, it is a complicate matter:

You cannot get whatever you want, I think every single one of us would want the perfect woman for example, the costs of waiting for that woman when it comes to things like marriage are real. General Patton had a rule that a good plan violently executed today was better than a perfect plan getting started in 2 weeks; taking something that is good now is better than waiting for something perfect is what he said, and he said any old unmarried maid agrees with him.

There are also two kinds of decisions, reversible and irreversible decisions; reversible ones you can make a rather quickly, irreversible ones you must be careful when deciding. When it comes to marriage, some would say that it is a reversible decision, but in reversing it you give up your sacred honor often times; to me reversing in marriage is not an option, I never want to lose my honor. So, in picking your companion, you need to be realistic and then pick the highest woman you can while being realistic and start trying to get your companion rather quickly, if it takes you years to find her when you're being proactive then you're setting your standards too high. Remember, in the olden days people married young because they zeroed in on the things that really mattered to them and did not care about the rest of the variability. Here are three things to look at in a partner: Eugenics, honesty, and friendship.

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Moving on from the example of marriage, let's talk about your life's purpose.

The purpose of your life is chosen by you, I mean every single one of us here knows that the purpose of us is to just exist and reach for the highest we can, it is made clear in the goal to secure our existence and create a future for our descendants; but beyond that you get to choose what it is that you are supposed to do in your life,

I do not recommend trying to find your purpose, create it yourself. You can create your purpose by knowing what it is you value and then focusing single-mindedly on developing that thing that you value, this is where it helps to be more specific because if you are too broad then you can end up developing your race, which you value obviously, from being an architect to being a midwife.

The same goes for trying to find who you are and what your personality is; do not try to find out who you are, decide who you are by looking at what you value and what you prefer.

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Once you have what you want as your purpose you should set your goals so high that you do not think you can achieve them in your lifetime, this is a great way of stretching your productivity like a rubber band and will constantly give you a guiding star that is the end of all your actions, and most importantly it maximizes your potential. Then you create a plan to get to that goal, this plan must be something you can start today. A good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan next week, you can always keep working on your plan and changing it, if you don't you're doing something wrong; you need to get to work immediately though.

Let's not forget, you can always change your goals too, the goals are there to serve you. Many people think this is you giving up, but it's not always the case; we obviously know that you can value many things, do the thing that you want to do, reach for the things you want to reach for the most above all other things, you have the right to change your mind.

If you set goals so high like I recommend, you will definitely think about how it is even possible to come up with a plan, if you cannot even create a plan to get there it is so high, then go as far as you can on a plan that is in the general direction of the goals you laid out.

One thing I do recommend is that your goals must be in the realm of reason, if you think it's absolutely impossible and defies the law of the universe to accomplish this goal then you're probably setting the wrong goal. What I mean to say is that you think it could be something that can actually happen even if it took a thousand years to do, now you don't have to make a goal so big that you think it would take a thousand years, I actually recommend setting a goal that you think could be done in three to five lifetimes.

These are all just guidelines, you can set goals that are smaller and more reasonable. These are just what I recommend.



Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.


bluewhiteandred on scored.co
8 months ago 0 points (+0 / -0 ) 1 child
> If you don't pick exactly what you want in any part of your life then you'll end up with anything

Well I was thinking about this a bit and the problem is, things change, so then people say to set "flexible goals", but sometimes it continues almost to the point where it makes a person question "why bother setting goals at all?"

For example, the man who marries and through no fault of their own is divorced; the person who works in an industry that gets disrupted by technology and has to find a new line of work; the person whose political candidate lost so they think they just need to "vote harder next time" and then they realize things are a lot more complicated...

> do not recommend being goalless because that's the equivalent of just letting things fall on your lap

sometimes it's just semantics, it doesn't mean people can't have consistent principles or values to live by or that they don't strive to do things; it may simply be questioning the process of how some people set and work towards certain goals and are trying to argue for a better process or view of "goals"

JohnCandle6 on scored.co
8 months ago 0 points (+0 / -0 )
>For example, the man who marries and through no fault of their own is divorced;

When you set goals you need to know why you are setting it in the first place.

The purpose of marriage is to properly perpetuate the race; if you get married and then divorced but had children you still fulfilled the goal; I kept that in mind when I got married because I was aware of the risks.

>the person who works in an industry that gets disrupted by technology and has to find a new line of work;

When setting goals not everything goes to plan, so you have to set another goal when that happens.
Risk of failure is always there, people shouldn't be letting risks that you can recover from stop them.

>the person whose political candidate lost so they think they just need to "vote harder next time" and then they realize things are a lot more complicated...

Setting goals on things you have no control over is dumb.

>it may simply be questioning the process of how some people set and work towards certain goals and are trying to argue for a better process or view of "goals

I agree. Goals are things that you want and are working towards, if a person has that then he's good to go even if he pretends not to have goals.

Many people do goals wrong, I have my system in my comment.
NoticingSomeNoses on scored.co
8 months ago 1 point (+0 / -0 / +1Score on mirror )
I would say Zen buddhism involves more or less that approach to life, and that seems to work pretty well for a lot of people.
deleted 8 months ago 1 point (+0 / -0 / +1Score on mirror )
MyDogBlondi on scored.co
8 months ago 0 points (+0 / -0 )
I live without goals, it's a mixed bag.

On the positive side, I have consistently done well taking advantage of fluke opportunities and pivoting from disaster.

On the downside, I'm extremely bad at pursuing the goals I do have.

If you wish to live without goals, my two bits of advice are: keep yourself prepared to chase any opportunities which present and occasionally chase small goals, just to retain the ability.
deleted 8 months ago 0 points (+0 / -0 )
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