Stop trying to achieve...

At the risk of upsetting anyone… anyway, trying to achieve is often the most limiting, life-denying thing you can do to yourself. The term “jack of all trades but master of none” is a term of derision. I say it should be the opposite in many cases.

This is not the same as becoming more proficient or skilful. The problem is targets and prizes and the requirement to ‘achieve’ these things to get recognition and plaudits. The focus and dedication that is so prized in the pursuit of ‘winning’ cause most of the interest and enjoyment available from the myriad possibilities of life to be closed and unnoticed.

Those people who do close off so many aspects of what life has to offer in pursuit of winning things, of getting a string of recognisable achievements attached to them, do you know what happens to them? They’re mostly forgotten. At best, they get added to a list that persists for a while, or they get thrown in with an era of nostalgia. Even becoming a mass murderer doesn’t have the allure it used to for those looking for immortality; there are so many of them - join the list.

Archaeology, digging up things and trying to piece together who lived where and what they were up to… once great buildings, temples even, monuments to people and ideas… they need digging up and piecing together. In their time, hugely expensive, taking thousands of hours of work to complete. Now, well, somewhere under a ploughed field, there might be some feature that’s been buried for centuries. Some buildings remain above ground for a while, and there’s a list of people who ‘built’ big buildings to belong to. It is the same with CEOs, Professors, pop stars, sporting anything, and rich people; all focused people who are admired… for missing out on many discoveries about the world and their interaction with it.

I’ve fallen foul of this for most of my life. I’ve discovered that it’s possible to dedicate most of my time to trying to achieve academic something so I can reveal the next layer of people who can look down on me…

I get gaining badges and qualifications that give people confidence that you know enough about what you’re doing to be mostly trusted. However, I’m suggesting that there is a never-ending treadmill of climbs and plateaus that, if fallen for, mean all you’re doing is walking up one path and one hill.

I know extraordinarily focused people who are exceptional at what they do. Musicians mostly. They are usually the most un-worldly, one-dimensional people with little interest in anything else. The only conversations that can be had with them are about music, which always turns into a competition rather than a conversation. I know academics like this too and have known sports people. The worst are the career management types who can’t talk about anything but work. I can somewhat admire the musicians, academics, and sporty types, but the work-bores… save us! Worse than religious zealots who manage to find their particular book of answers (or what they’ve been told is in it) at the end of anything and everything.

Getting good enough at something, which might be very good indeed, and enjoying it is not the same. I’m suggesting that enjoying this process of interest and participation shouldn’t become so overwhelming that there is no time for experiencing new interests and possibilities. When the achievement becomes the driver to continue, it might be time to try something else. Life has so many possibilities. This year, painting; next year, walking; next year, pottery; next year, setting up a business; next year, a different style of painting; next year, a new instrument. This isn’t prescriptive; I’m just trying to get the point across that a lot of the time spent trying to achieve a certain thing is time not experiencing something else. Maybe anything else.

Your life is to be experienced, and there is so much to be experienced. Showing off wealth amassed by having limited your life brings pity from me, not jealousy. If you have ‘enough’ and can spend your time in interesting ways and hold intelligent conversations with interesting people, if you can be open to learning and experiencing your continual becoming, then I will want some of what you have.