Life - The Never Ending Cycle of Goals

[Radical]

If you look in to how our brain behaves, you will notice that our brain likes to hold on to a goal. Most of us are holding on to something in our life. Most of us have some goal. Take an example, you want to be rich. You want to be famous. Our goal provides our brain an anchor. If you are on a religious path you may have a goal of reaching enlightenment. Goal is something that we look forward to. We seek goals in our life. Goal is also the same thing as desire. It is something that we seek.

When one goal is reached then we form another goal. There is no end to the cycle of goal formation. Think about when you were in high school. You wanted to graduate. After you graduated you wanted to go to college. Then you wanted to get a job. After getting a job you wanted to marry. After marrying you want to have children. Once you settle down you get bored. Then you form new goals. There is no end to the cycle of forming goals.

At some point in our life we realize that whatever we were trying to reach is not valuable or reachable. You then join some spiritual organization. You end up with spiritual goals. You want to reach nirvana or enlightenment. You want to reach some higher level of consciousness.

If you notice that all these are goals. Why do we want to reach these goals even if we know that there is no end to the cycle of these goals? Once you reach one goal then a second goal pops up. Our life is an endless cycle of trying to reach these goals. Ultimately at some point we realize that we cannot achieve these goals. We give up and become passive. We get depressed.

The question is why our brain craves for goals? What will happen if we do not strive and reach goals? We do not know what to do with our lives. We feel we will be worthless. We feel that we have not made anything of our valuable life. We don’t see any point in living if we do not achieve goals. We feel that we have wasted our lives. We feel lost if our brain does not have a goal.

There is no end to the goals that we are seeking. Take an example; you may have felt that once you have job, spouse, children, house etc you will not need anything more. If you have all those things, you will realize that the inner emptiness is still there. The inner void feeling is still there. It seems that if you achieve something to get satisfaction, once you achieve that goal, the satisfaction jumps one step away. Once you reach the goal the satisfaction vanishes and jumps to some other goal. Our life is a struggle. It is battle to achieve all these eluding goals. The bottomless pit of satisfaction never gets filled up. It always remains empty.

[RT Wolf]

Our brain craves goals because evolution built us that way. To acquire things and to go towards goals is one of those things that made a lot of sense to ancesteral humans.

In a larger context, though, your goals are (supposedly) dictated by your purpose. Suppose you had the goal of becoming a millionaire. What if you just wnated to for your own reasons. On the other hand, what if someone said that if you didn't they would kill you, or someone you loved. Your motivation and purpose is a lot more important.

Another thing to realize is that happiness can come only from within you. They did a study of people who had experienced large events both positive (winning the lottery) and negative (getting into car accident and losing the use of limbs, etc). Immediately afterwards, they felt the extremes of the emotions (happiness and dispair). However, over time, they returned to previous levels of happiness. Our brains are also built to be hopeful and optimistic (read Mean Genes for a good account of all this), because that is also evolutionarily beneficial.

Edit: That example of milliion dollars and gun is likely hte worst example I have ever, ever given, but I can't think of anything better.

[Nicketas]

Though I agree that we all have a desire for goals and acheivement, I disagree with the rest of this thread author's statements.

Contentment and gratitude are learned skills and in fact, they are very easy to acquire through a shift in perspective and awareness.

Basically; just change your mind

[RT Wolf]

I'm also getting the vague sense that you're feeling a little down and nihilistic.

Realize (and I think you already know this) that the important thing about life is your subjective experience of it on a moment to moment basis. You set those goals according to your purpose cause it just feels damned good.

[placebo]

I read somewhere about comparing life with road and living like driving a car. If you know where you're going and you know what road will you take you will come to wanted place much faster than if you just cruised around. You know how far are you from nearest motel or gas station, you know exactly what will happen to you. But when you drive straight to your goal so many things you'll miss. You'll just drive by them with no time or desire to stop.

On the other hand if you just drive around not knowing where you're going you'll meet many interesting people and see many amazing things. It is a great experience.

In the end of the first scenario you'll be sad because you didn't stop from time to time and had fun,and in the second one you'll feel empty because you'll feel you didn't achieve anything. Both conclusions are false and true at he same time. It's up to you. Do you want to take a road trip on a highway or you want to drive around on small local roads?

[starseed]

Goals are a great way to plan out where you want to go in life, the things you would like to achieve. The only problem that arises from setting goals is the attachment to the outcome. Life is a complicated path full of twists and turns, what seems like a horrible experience in the moment, looked back on many years later can be one of the most rewarding experiences, growth-wise, of your life. I think the key is to have fun with life, set goals if you choose and let your thoughts take you on an adventure of growth and discovery.

[Parthon]

Starseed hit it perfect.

It's the Ego's attachment to outcomes that leave you feeling unfulfilled. A goal is just an idea of something that could be possible. It becomes empowering when you imagine it as somewhere you would like to get to and work towards getting there, it guides your thoughts and actions in making it happen.

As soon as you get attached to outcomes of goals however you feel empty, it's because you "aren't there yet", and sometimes it feels like you will never get there. You create a goal as somewhere that has to be reached and that something is lacking if you don't reach it or worse, something is lacking until you DO reach it. This is what it is to chase goals, to go after them trying to have that right goal fill that emptiness that comes from thinking you are lacking and that's where the experience of disatisfaction comes from.

Raising your awareness allows you to see the connection between outcomes, and goals, and the attachment, separating one from the other. You start to live in the now again, and become connected to what is real and happening in the present. Everything just as it is right now is perfect with nothing lacking, then goals become ideas of something possible again, not something to hang onto.

That sense of lacking is actually not a function of the brain, it is a learned concept that is common in almost all people. Psychology, not physiology. The fact that many people have unlearned it to go on to experience fulfillment in their lives and still have goals they want to achieve, shows that the two can exist at the same time.

Lastly, Radical: RT Wolf said something that rang with me, your posts do have a generally nihilistic tone. Is there a reason for such posts? Because living in a world like that would be hell.

[Jez]

Well, being 'goal driven' in the way you describe, Radical, really isn't typical of the way people have lived in the past, or the way they live in much of the world today. And even in the parts of mainly the Western world where it is typical I think most people follow goals that are really set for them by other people.

I've never been much of a 'goal setter' myself. A long time ago I decided that I really didn't care too much if I was happy or not, but I wanted to have an interesting life. Sometimes I've gotten sucked in, for a time, to fulfilling others' expectations, but whenever I get back to that original desire my life gets definitely interesting! -- And usually quite happy as well.