The Danger of Being Obsessed With Results
“If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.” ― Anatole France
“If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.” ― Anatole France
Life is hard.
I get it, we all want to succeed. If you’re an ambitious person, like me, you see yourself succeeding despite the many obstacles you may face along the way. If you’re an adrenaline junkie, you probably feeling of hitting milestones and endlessly chase that sensation.
Better yet, you could just be a straight up workaholic, willing to put in the hours (and then some) because you know it pays off. Heck, you might even be the underdog, working to the bone to prove you belong at the table with the big dogs.
But whichever group you fall under, it seems as if we all have tunnel vision. We can see our goals, envisioning exactly where we want to be. We know it’ll be a gruelling, tiring process, but we’re determined.
Word of advice — don’t let your ambition destroy your life.
Life is made up of experiences — the people we meet, the places we go, the smells, the sights. It is so much more than 25k followers or 200 retweets, or a 6 figure salary and a mansion in the hills.
When we forget this, we begin to lose who we are.
It is so easy to find yourself wound up with stress and anxiety because you’re constantly striving to reach a goal. You’ve become a goal-reaching machine, not a human.
If I’m being honest, it’s not even your fault.
Society has conditioned us to believe that the winners are the ones constantly chasing, the ones that ‘stay on their feet,’ accomplishing their goals again and again, relentlessly. The losers? The ones with no direction, no goals, no purpose, wasting their lives away at a mundane 9 to 5 job.
But heres the thing… rich people never have enough wealth and famous people never have enough spotlight.
If you’re a chaser, you will be chasing for the rest of your life. And that’s terrifying.
Never being satisfied means that you’ll live an unfulfilled life. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying you shouldn’t be ambitious and work tirelessly for what you want. All I’m saying is this: don’t let your goals consume you.
Here’s a quick personal anecdote to drive it home.
About a year ago I had a roommate — her name was Katy.
Katy was the polar opposite of me; she didn’t care about making money, and she didn’t have the same concept of success in her head as I did. She wanted to go to drama college and eventually become an actress. In fact, she was willing to be paid peanuts every day of her life if it meant that she could do what she loved: acting.
At first, we completely clashed. I remember a specific time where I had been so pumped about real estate and properties and I had my journal out and I was scribbling like crazy. Katy was curious as to what I was doing and I told her all about my amazing plan to buy up apartments and lease them out for XY% return on my initial investment — and she scoffed. Literally.
I was baffled. Did she not hear the amount of money this could potentially make me? This led to a conversation where Katy expressed how she thought I was a money-hungry pathetic loser (not her exact words, but you get the gist). From then on, I kept my business plans to myself — it was clear she just didn’t know how life worked.
But after a while, I started to reflect on the way in which we both talked about our futures. It wasn’t that Katy didn’t have purpose, or direction or even drive. She had those things, but Katy didn’t talk about her dream in terms of the end-goal. She wasn’t passionate about the Oscar she would win when she made it big. She was excited to live in the process. The day-to-day of being on set, learning a new acting technique — whatever it was.
To me, the process was nothing more than a minor inconvenience which I would ‘power through.’ I didn’t get giddy at the idea of finding tenants, fixing damages or drawing up contracts. In fact, I was so focused on the end-goal (the money), that I didn’t so much as give the process a second’s thought!
So essentially — the litmus test is, if you took away the end goal — (for Katy — the money, the Oscar. For me — the money) would you still want to do it? Katy’s answer would be yes. My answer? Hell no!
So if you’re like me, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way to ensure you don’t end up miserable by the time you finally accomplish your lifelong wish is to make sure you whole-heartedly enjoy the process of whatever it is you want to do.
