There are few things more depressing than reading other people’s life goals. What a person aspires towards defines the limits of his existence: if your goals are vague you will never know when you have achieved them; if they are too unrealistic you’re bound to be disappointed. Rule one of goal-setting: make sure you’re goals are SMART. Most people’s life goals are unspecific, meaningless, unachievable, unrealistic and vague.
Here are some of the usual suspects:
Achieve Happiness
Unless you suffer from anhedonia, you can be happy whatever your circumstances. Happiness is a relative state — some people are more happy than others, but the reasons they are happy are not always obvious. However, people who have the ability to get into a state of flow are generally happier than those who find it impossible to concentrate.
Financial Stability
Human desires are almost infinite, so it is unlikely that anything less than superwealth will satiate your desire for more stuff. For most people, stability means earning at least what they earn now without actually doing any work, preferably through low-maintenance investments or through their novel.
Create a work of genius that will have make them famous for all eternity
Anybody can write a book, but few get them published, and fewer still actually get them read. What is most dismaying is that most of these writers don’t actually seem to read contemporary novels — if they did, they’d probably think again about wanting to write one.
Improve the World
Again, improvement is a relative concept. Look at someone who has dedicated his life to improving the world, like Bone-o or Bob Geldof. Sure, a few lives have been saved but now the world is running out of resources because of overpopulation.
Help People
. . . Or meddling. Whilst it is admirable to do horrible jobs like caring for the elderly and teaching naughty children, most goalsetters seem to have a less hands-on idea of what help means. Like, say, writing a book which reforms education or something equally unrealistic.
Travel
There is a persistent myth that travel broadens the mind. What it does, I think, is defers the time when you actually have to take action. In the 18th Century, travel was something you did when you were young to help prepare for adulthood. Now we all aspire to live in a state of perpetual adolescent wonder.
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