“Future is a mystery,
Past is a mess,
What about present, here and now?
How can I be so torn up inside?
Why,
Why am I here?”

virtual symmetry – Rising

Welcome back my dear travel companion, thank you coming along a few steps on my path. Spoiler alert – today is very philosophical (but isn’t it always.) and for the very first time i am doing a post that is split into two parts.

You might be glad to know that i made huge progress within the last days – i for sure am glad to be able to write this. (If you missed what happened go and read my post Lost in the boscage)

Setting goals for sure helped me getting back on the track. Yet I need to be careful when i set them. As i often tend to try eating a whole elephant. (More on that later in part two of the post).  

But lets start with the first part – the „About goals“ 

One of my goals is of course being a writer (which according to the literal meaning i am as i am just writing something). Surely there are other goals i could pursue? This got me thinking about goals in general. And as you usual i like to share my thought about this.

Goals 

What is a goal? As kind of a new hobby i like to look up words – that i like to know the meaning of  in the dictionary. Good old Cambridge dictionary defines a goal as an aim or purpose. With the meaning of an aim being a result that your plan or actions are intended to achieve, while purpose is described as a determination or a feeling of having a reason for what you do, furthermore as why you do something or why something exists. Which brings me back to the question mentioned in my initial quote taken from Virtual Symmetry’s song „Rising“, where the lyricist so aptly asks: „Why, why am I here.“ 

Who could answer such a universal question? If you type „What is the main goal in life“ into Google you will achieve 1.450.000.000 results in 0,54 seconds.  Yes, go ahead, read it again: 1.450.000.000! That’s a huge number, one i struggle to read out loud correctly. I guess this shows the importance of this question and yet the difficulty to answer it at the same time.

Maybe we can narrow the results down. Is there a science that answers such a huge question? Well, why not try religion ? 

So i typed in „What is the goal of life according to religion?“ and i found „only“ 436.000.000 results (if you are interested the search took 0,65 seconds). However not all religions are the same. As I myself have been born and raised a christian i first looked into what my life goal should be according to this:

„The core Christian belief is that through belief in and acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, sinful humans can be reconciled to God, and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life.“ ¹ 

Okay, quite nice but helpful? You decide. I’d rather get a second opinion. Second biggest religion in the country i live in is – according to Wikipedia- the Islam. 

„Followers of Islam aim to live a life of complete submission to Allah. They believe that nothing can happen without Allah’s permission, but humans have free will.“ ² 

Sorry, still not convinced. Any other religion i could check? Buddhism always seems hip and trendy, so what does it have as an answer to my question ? 

„The ultimate goal in Buddhism is to end the cycle of suffering, the cycle of repeated death and rebirth. The achievement of this goal is called nirvana.“ ³

Alright – three different answers already and this have just been three religions i looked into (admittedly very briefly). There are so many others ( Judaism, Jehovas Witnesses, Hinduism, Scientology, Rastafari, Sikhism, ethnic religions… just to name a few). And i really do not like to look into all of them to find MY answer. (Please feel free to do so for yourself, and i just like to state something that should be very clear anyway: i do not wish to encounter into any religious discussion, as every person on this earth has the right to believe what he or she or it or them likes to believe).

So maybe religion is not the right science after all in this case. How about we ask Philosophy instead? Philosophy is supposed to have answers, doesn’t it? I remember having a basic class in philosophy in high school but have to admit i skipped classes quite often (which had more to do with the absolutely boring teacher than the subject itself). Anyway – a quick search i google for „What is the goal of life according to philosophy“ brings 831.000.000 results (in 0,47 seconds).  

So who are great philosophers that could have an answer to this topic? Plato, maybe? 

„For Plato, the purpose of life was to achieve wisdom and understanding. Plato believed that the human soul was immortal, and that its ultimate goal was to return to the world of the Forms, where it could gain true knowledge and understanding.“ ⁴

Ha – i like that – isn’t that exactly what i am trying to do in this post? „achieve wisdom and understanding“? Maybe i should read a bit more of what Plato wrote. Other philosophers of course give different answers, like Aristotle.

„If you ask Aristotle, the purpose of life was to achieve eudaimonia, or human flourishing. Aristotle believed that the good life was one in which a person could develop their intellectual and moral virtues to their fullest potential.“ ⁴

Boy, this is getting complicated. What is eudaemonia? And what is the fullest potential? Maybe another philosopher is easier to understand. What does german philosopher Immanuel Kant has to say. Who was – and that is a really fun part of researching for my posts – born in the same city as my maternal grandmother. So i might agree with him if just for my granny’s sake.

„For Immanuel Kant, the purpose of life was to fulfill one’s moral duties. Kant believed that the moral law was innate in every human being, and that the purpose of life was to follow this law and to act in accordance with the moral principles that it prescribed. In Kant’s view, the good life was one in which a person acted according to their moral duties, and in doing so, they would be fulfilling the purpose of their existence.“ ⁴

Oh which irony, although Kant and my grandmother never met as they lived in different time periods, i am absolutely sure that they would have got along really well. „The purpose of life (is) to fulfill one’s moral duties.“ Fulfill your duty is a philosophy that could be engraved in my family crest (if we had one). As this has my life goal for many many years as well and it did not really do me any good i say thank you Immanuel but when it comes to philosophers i will stick with what Plato said for now. Although i still want a bit more.

Now i have consulted two humanities already, but there is a proverb that goes third time is a charm. So that means one more science to ask. And this time i opted for psychology.

The google search for „What is the goal of life according to psychology“ brings 951.000.000 results in 0,53 seconds. For me this is actually a surprise as i would have bet that philosophy would have more findings than psychology, but it is a clear win for psychology.

While researching for this post stumbled upon the renowned psychologist Alfred Adler (Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of him before, i hadn’t either.) It was the following sentence that caught my eye: „Adler believed that we all have one basic desire and goal: to belong and to feel significant.“ ⁵ 

This sentence got my attention due to two reasons. Firstly because it is related to a post i am planning to do a bit later about the Importance of feeling valued. And secondly because i resonate strongly to it. 

Therefore I got myself a bit more acquainted with this Austrian founder of the school of individual psychology. Adler used the therm „style of life“ to describe the dynamics of the personality. 

„The Style of Life reflects the individual’s unique, unconscious, and repetitive way of responding to (or avoiding) the main tasks of living: friendship, love, and work.“⁶

And i like to use Adlers words to sum up this first part of my post: „The main tasks of living friendship, love and work“. Can it be as easy as that? Are these goals that i could add to my already existing writing goal? I really like this theoretical idea. And having written this post i have two little goals on my agenda. Reading a bit more from Plato and reading a bit more from Alfred Adler. And how important it is to have not only a big life goal, but little goals as well, how to set them, and how on earth eating an elephant is relevant to all of this will be revealed in the second part of this post. 

So – what about you, in which science did you find YOUR answer? Or is the question about the goal of life not one you are asking yourself? Do you have any comments or idea? Let me know. 

Thank you for reading and see you soon again in Part 2 of “About goals in life – or: how to eat an elephant.”

A. 

Introductory quote taken from the song “Rising” from the latest album by swiss/italian band Virtual Symmetry.

More information about the band on www.virtualsymmetry.com

Listen to the song here: