I’ve lived my whole life without having goals, and I think that’s very valuable, because then I never am in a state of anxiety or dissatisfaction. I never feel I haven’t achieved something. I never feel there is something yet to be accomplished. I feel like goals are quite counterproductive. They give you a target, and until the moment you reach that target, you are stressed and unsatisfied, and at the moment you reach that specific target you are aimless and have lost the lodestar of your existence. I’ve always tried to see everything as a process. I want to do things in a certain way that I can be proud of that is sustainable and is fair and equitable to everybody that I interact with. If I can do that, then that’s a success, and success means that I get to do it again tomorrow.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
All posts in category present-future dichotomy
steve albini on goals
Posted by sean on February 3, 2022
https://sd-stewart.com/2022/02/03/steve-albini-on-goals/
words from winterreise by gerhard roth
“I always think that life still lies ahead of me, as though I had organized my previous life only for a short while and I were about to start my real life not too far in the future,” thought Nagl.
“It all simply happens to me,” he kept thinking. “I live from day to day, without asking many questions. Mostly I take everything for granted so that I don’t think about it. I don’t resist, nor do I give in, nor do I tell myself I have no choice.”
—Gerhard Roth, Winterreise
Posted by sean on July 22, 2014
https://sd-stewart.com/2014/07/22/words-from-winterreise-by-gerhard-roth/