Questions For You #2
Vishal Thacker
Find the red thread, re-direct your career | Visiting Lecturer: Career Narrative Authoring at World Top 20 MBAs | Strategic Narrative Designer
What do you want out of life?
Yes, I am coming out the big one's, because there's a lot more waiting for you.
This question is the fundamental question tackled by philosophy. Which may be further broken into: What do you want out of your life, what is truly worthy of pursuit, and what virtues must you live by in order to pursue it?
As a glimpse, the hedonists argue that maximising pleasure is a worthy goal while the stoics argue that peace of mind is a worthy goal. Modern society might have you believe that fame and fortune are worthy goals, which is essentially just an immature and perhaps misinformed hedonist position. This is why there is an increasing rise of stoicism in the world today, as an antidote to this unhealthy hedonist philosophy we've propagated.
But we're not here to debate which goal is worthy. Because that would entail the discussion of the pros and cons of each goal, and the acknowledgement of the fact that philosophy, like strategy, is choice: if you pick one goal, you must sacrifice another.
Rather we're here to state that having a goal, is in itself worthy. As it allows you to design and structure your life around attaining it. It gives you something to work toward.
Without a goal to move toward, in your life, you are the risk of being lost. For you are simply not moving toward anything at all. Rather, if you have something to move toward consciously, whatever that might be, you can evaluate, redirect and measure up your steps, and practical, concrete aspects of your life. But if you have nothing to work toward, no ideal to live by, then you have nothing to compare with, and therefore never truly know what you're doing.
So, honestly: What do you want out of life?
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