Everyone Should Have Goals…Right?

I recently attended a workshop, where a large focus was on goal-setting. Given my contrarian perspective, I was asked to briefly speak to the group about Goal-Free Living. The next day, a woman came over to me and said, “My son is one of the happiest people I know. And he is wildly successful. But he doesn’t have any goals. And I think he should have goals. What do you think? Should I buy him your book?” My response was, “No. You should buy the book for yourself so that you can better understand your son. Here is someone who is happy and successful, and you want to change that! Maybe after reading the book, you will want to give him your copy so that he feels validated.”

It is interesting how people believe that their view of the world is the correct one — and that others should follow their lead. There are many ways to live your life. I am not proselytizing Goal-Free Living! It is not the right way to live your life. It is only an alternative view of the world. A view that works for many happy and successful people.

I discussed the concept of certitude in a previous post.

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Comment from Blog

Here is the first paragraph of another comment posted on my blog:

“I stumbled across your web site today and succumbed to my curious state. Goal-Free Living, how contrary to the stuff forced down me since childhood. I have seldom successfully done the goal thing. It some how runs against my nature to live life with some spontaneity. The word flow appeals to lovers of freedom and originality. The setting of goals according to someone else’s suggestion immediately puts you on there path to some degree, changes the flow if you will. Whoa says I. Do not take me off my path. It may be a bad path or it may be a good path but it is my path. If I divert my attention to this goal preparation at someone’s behest, I will probably, to some degree, put down those goals the goal pusher wants, which leads me away from my inner path, brought to me by all my natural faculties. Now it may be that my faculties are not so good, or perhaps the goal pushers faculties are not so good. Should I trust him or me? There-in lies the rub. It reminds me of a line in an old country and western song, ‘I can make my own mistakes just fine.’”

Read the original entry and the full comment here

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Happy as a Dog

One of my favorite authors is Carl Hiaasen. He writes fun books where the bad guys are always land developers in Miami. In his book Sick Puppy, one of the characters is a dog. A Labrador retriever. A very goal-free dog.

The dog was having a grand time. That’s the thing about being a Labrador retriever – you were born for fun. Seldom was your loopy, free-wheeling mind cluttered by contemplation, and never at all by somber worry; every day was a romp. What else could there possibly be to life? Eating was a thrill. Pissing was a treat. Shitting was a joy. And licking your own balls? Bliss. And everywhere you went were gullible humans who patted and hugged and fussed over you.

Labradors operated by the philosophy that life was too brief for anything but fun and mischief and spontaneous carnality….Labradors tended to live exclusively, gleefully, and obliviously in the moment.

When I read this passage, it made me wonder if sometimes the human brain is our enemy. Maybe it is our ability to think and rationalize that becomes a barrier to true and gleeful bliss. So perhaps, just for today, I’ll choose to be happy like a dog.

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Gross National Happiness

A recent New York Times article raises the question, “What is happiness. In the United States and in many other industrialized countries, it is often equated with money.” The article continues with an idea of the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan: Gross National Happiness. “The goal, according to many involved in this effort, is in part to return to a richer definition of the word happiness, more like what the signers of the Declaration of Independence had in mind when they included ‘the pursuit of happiness’ as an inalienable right equal to liberty and life itself.”

Read the article. Then ask yourself what your measure(s) of happiness would be.

P.S. To read the article, you must register with the New York Times — it’s free.

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Alan Alda’s Goal-Free Quote

In Alan Alda’s new book, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed (And Other Things I’ve Learned) , he tells a story about “The Apple Tree,” a mid-’60s Broadway play, which resulted in a Tony nomination. What he recalls in the book is wondering where his career was going.

In a recent CNN interview, Alda is quoted as saying, “The story I tell about standing under the silk shroud in ‘The Apple Tree’ and my career had come to nothing so far, and then realizing that I was looking at it wrong — instead of thinking about what I ought to be doing, I should be thinking about what I’m doing,” he says, “and make the most of what I have in front of me.”

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