In Defense of the Goal-Less Life
You’ve got 10,000 steps to get.
A Move ring to close.
A protein goal you’re trying to reach.
A disappointed Duolingo owl sending reminders that you’re behind on your French practice.
A water bottle on your desk with a line that tells you how much water you’re supposed to drink in a day.
A journal you’ve decided to try to write in every day, but it’s still in the wrapper.
An email inbox that needs tending because you are trying to become an “inbox zero” person.
A business idea that needs to get off the ground by November.
A child who needs to be read to each night.
A meditation app that only needs 10 minutes of your time.
A new sleep routine you’ve got to nail or tomorrow will be hell...
It's exhausting.
Goals have turned modern living into a daily ops review on the progress of your life.
And not surprisingly, the boss isn’t happy.
The Achievement Loop
From an early age, we’re surrounded by goals. There are letters to memorize, books to be read, cognitive and social benchmarks to be assessed. Scores are assigned, 100% being the goal, unless of course there is more to be gained than 100%, then extra credit is what you’re after, offering a way to make perfection look lazy by comparison.
There are elite schools to get into, volunteer hours to log, top jobs to get, bonus tiers to chase, and retirement accounts that are hopefully on pace.
Output does matter in the real world. It’s hard to have a job without some awareness of outcomes and results. In my consulting work, 90% of what matters to the people I work with is objective output.
Goal setting, for all its shortcomings and slandering around the new year, does what it is intended to do; it produces results. It’s no wonder we obsess over setting good goals, sticking with our goals, and achieving more. Having goals does make it more likely you’re going to achieve whatever you’re after.
But is a life of achievement the only thing we’re after?
The Absence of Pursuit
Achievement is a wonderful thing for society but a pretty lousy north star for personal well-being.
We’ve all heard the story of the lottery winner who falls back to earth after the high is over. The professional athlete who dedicated their life to reaching the pinnacle of the sport only to lose hope, interest, and all of their money after reaching their goals.
But you also know this more intimately, because maybe you got the job, the promotion, or the money, and rather than feeling like you’ve arrived and can finally relax, you can’t help but feel you weren’t aiming high enough, or that it wasn’t really what you wanted in the first place.
Goals are one way we get to stay on the hedonic treadmill. There is no shortage of things to improve in our lives and metrics to gauge our progress.
A friend of mine took up ceramics in her free time. She enjoyed it until her attention turned to ways she could monetize it. She started researching Etsy stores and craft fairs until soon the desire to make ceramics was replaced by a different project altogether.
Doing something in the absence of pursuit, without intending to gain something or arrive at a destination, is difficult to wrap our minds around.
One of the core philosophies of Zen Buddhism is the emphasis on practice over attainment.
Let’s say you decide to practice meditation to develop your presence, reduce stress, or even reach enlightenment. Sure, these are possible outcomes people experience after meditating. But Zen is very specific in teaching that one should not show up with these goals in mind, nor any other goals.
You are encouraged to practice without what Zen master Shunryu Suzuki referred to as a “gaining idea.”
To sit, breathe, and be aware is enlightenment. There is nothing else to be attained.
When you first sit down with this idea, the mind wanders:
- But how long should I sit here each day?
- What will it feel like to do it correctly?
- When I’m thinking, does that mean I’m failing?
Goals... productivity...
But after some time, learning to sit down without agenda or evaluation surfaces something interesting. It feels like freedom.
Try it now. Stop reading and sit here for just a moment with the idea that sitting and breathing is all there is to achieve.
If you can do it, even for a moment, the contrast becomes stark. You realize just how much of life is being evaluated on a minute-by-minute basis rather than being lived for the sake of living.
Living Without Evaluation
When I first started writing the introduction to this essay, I intended to be a little facetious in listing all the goals one could have in a day. I didn’t have to think long to accumulate a realistic and long list.
But as I reread it, I realized they were all goals I’ve set for myself at one point. While some of these pursuits have made my life better, few have had as dramatic an effect on my well-being as I'd hoped (sleep being the biggest.)
The list of things I do just to do them? That list is very, very short.
Maybe it’s time the list should be flipped.
Goals should be few and meaningful. The list of things you do just to do them should be larger.
The morning walk can start being just a morning walk.
The lunch you make can just be lunch, not something to get over with before your next meeting.
The time with your family isn't about engineering quality time, it's just time together.
There are lots of these moments in the day. In fact, most of the day IS a collection of these moments.
At this point, it's easy to carry out the logic that if one activity doesn't need a purpose or goal, then doing nothing may also be valuable. Maybe dedication or persistence doesn't matter either since you're doing things just for the sake of doing them.
This misses the point.
As Suzuki teaches:
"You have to do something. If you're going to bake bread, you might as well try and bake good bread."
If you're going to take a walk, make it a good walk.
If you're going to have a conversation, make it a good conversation.
If you're going to write, try to write well.
What else am I working on?
