Chasing Impossible Goals is a Relief in a World (& Platform) Obsessed With Results
I don’t care how many friggin’ followers you gained this month.
Or how much money you made from your new lucrative passive income side hustle that for some reason nobody’s talking about.
You disguise it as a story of celebrating success and believe you’re compelled to write about it out of generosity for your neighbor.
But really, you just know humans are obsessed with results.
And now, whether out of hard work and/or good fortune, you have some, and all you can think to do is use them to chase more results.
You appeal to your former desperate self, receive well-needed validation for all your wasted time from other desperate seekers, and, strategically, build a business out of your results to get even more results.
What a miserable way to live.
Chasing external results is to:
- be driven by uncontrollable forces and so be constantly uncertain and on edge
- have your work and ethics dictated by others and metrics
- forfeit meaning and presence in this moment for the promise of later gains
When your idea of success is based on external results, anything and everything can become permissible — no matter how soulless or how miserable it makes you — as long as it leads to positive results.
As a culture, we’ve forgotten how to make the journey the goal and instead just focus on arriving at the destination.
Buddhists aren’t known for being the most productive people on the planet. But they are known for living highly noble, present, and virtuous lives.
Without a SMART goal in sight, they chase ridiculously ambitious aims that would put any Silicon Valley CEO to shame:
Beings are numberless, I vow to save them
Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to end them
Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them
Buddha’s way is unachievable, I vow to achieve it.
— The Four Bodhisattva Vows
