The over-riding goal of your life

[JWC3]

God I wish I could figure out what mine is. I know I never will but at the same time I doubt the desire will ever fade so... sorta logically speaking I guess the goal of my life is contentedness. Not like complacency though, not something you slowly sink or ease into. That feeling that you achieve once you've accomplished a goal. I don't know if it matters so much what that goal is or even if the quality or quantity of the work put in are important so long as that sense of achievement is reached.

[Creepy-male]

To eat delicious food.

[JWC3]

To eat delicious food.

Dude... That's actually a really good one. SHIT! There is some mother fucking great ass food out there.

[1981slater]

Once you achieve a goal, you shouldn't celebrate for too long. Another unfulfilled goal will show up and everything will start up again.

[Creepy-male]

There is some mother fucking great ass food out there.

That there is, Joe, that there is.

[FDG]

Once you achieve a goal, you shouldn't celebrate for too long. Another unfulfilled goal will show up and everything will start up again.

Yeah, what he said.

[Quaris]

To work hard for something and be really really good at it. It's just too hard for me to keep working on it if the process is uninteresting..and if I don't get enough feeling of success.
I always idealize these kind of things. Pretty normal shit I think, like being a very good player at some competitive video game or to be able to write nice music.
Is this type related?

[Krig the Viking]

To seek truth in all things. Hence my signature.

[Crispy]

Constant and Never-Ending Improvement

[Simon Ssmall]

Enjoying life.

[Creepy-bg]

Enjoying life.

I was going to say "why would you stress out your life by trying to make up an over-riding goal for it?" but this says pretty much the same thing only in a nice way.

[Creepy-male]

Just had some tasty-ass tuna quesadillas.

I now have to clean up.

The good with the bad, unfortunately

[Quaris]

I was going to say "why would you stress out your life by trying to make up an over-riding goal for it?" but this says pretty much the same thing only in a nice way.

I think we all do this. Just in different ways.

[Park]

To avoid mediocrity and live life to the fullest.

[Wynch]

Enjoying life.

This is precisely what I was going to say.

[redbaron]

Si=enjoying life.

Nah, I mean I think we all want that to some extent, obviously!?

The goal of my life at the moment is to focus on my strengths so I can offer the world and my kids the best of who I am, instead of floundering around, trying to be someone I'm not.

[Cyrano]

To eat delicious food.

To Serve Man.

[Quaris]

Si=enjoying life.

Nah, I mean I think we all want that to some extent, obviously!?

The goal of my life at the moment is to focus on my strengths so I can offer the world and my kids the best of who I am, instead of floundering around, trying to be someone I'm not.

Oh yes. That would be awesome.
It's just soo hard(for me) to find it and to be sure. Shiet, I think I have wasted half my life trying to find it.

[The Exception]

To work hard for something and be really really good at it. It's just too hard for me to keep working on it if the process is uninteresting..and if I don't get enough feeling of success.
I always idealize these kind of things. Pretty normal shit I think, like being a very good player at some competitive video game or to be able to write nice music.
Is this type related?

I know Myers-Briggs wise, the NT temperament has a strong need for competency and mastery. I think all types want this to some extent but NTs probably have the strongest want for it all overall. (Socionics NTs as well as Myers-Briggs).

I know I definitely want to find my niche in life and I feel like I haven't found it yet. I don't care so much what that niche ends up being just as long as I have one I can call my own. I want to accomplish something important that makes a positive impact on society and be remembered for that after I die.

However, I have a lazy streak and I want to be good at something without having to work too hard for it.

Constant and Never-Ending Improvement

Enjoying life.

To eat delicious food.

To seek truth in all things. Hence my signature.

To avoid mediocrity and live life to the fullest.

To Serve Man.

I want all of the above too!

[Wynch]

Yeah, I don't care about success qualifiers at all. Fulfilling some kind of niche or optimizing strengths etc doesn't really drive me at all. When I say personal fulfillment and enjoying life I really mean that in the most basic way. I just want to end my day feeling good and do what it takes to feel that way. I want to pursue my interests because they interest me and for no other reason. I won't lie, I'm pretty selfish in the sense that I care about all these things only for me. I don't like disappointing the people I care about and want them to be proud of me, but at the same time I want that to be a by-product of what I enjoy.

So for instance I'm working towards becoming a teacher right now. I'm doing it because it's I'm a natural teacher and I genuinely love teaching people. Also, I love working with kids and coming up with new and interesting ways to get them to engage with something. It isn't really some potential-reaching thing that drives me to that. If reaching my full potential was my goal I never would have gone into History and I definitely wouldn't be going into teaching. As a by-product there are people who see this as laziness in me or lack of intellect among other things. Some people see that it's something I would excel at and commend me for picking such an appropriate career. All of that is irrelevant to me. I'm following that path because it's there right now and I think it'll make me happy. I can picture myself going into work and coming home with overall positive feelings (not to say that there won't be bad days, lol).

My goal is finding a life that makes me feel good. How I acheive that could manifest in innumerable ways, but that is really my ultimate goal. Hell, I'm not even sure I have real goals in that case. The only "goals" I tend to have are pretty short term. "Finish this class," "Finish my degree," "Do your BEd," "Find a job." The only time I set real goals for myself is when they are practical and required in order to actually be doing something. I honestly don't know what it'll be like when I'm finished school and don't have those "required" goals anymore. I'm pretty awful at setting other goals like saving money for something I want, etc. Usually I either just get what I want or don't bother getting what I want unless I happen to have what I need to get it. I'm pretty awful at setting long-term goals, lol.

[silverchris9]

I don't quite know what to say my life goal is. Basically, it's to write well, but if I can do the same thing internally without writing, that'd be okay too, like if I were a musician or an actor or a singer or a painter or what have you. Metaphorically, I want to be adam early in the morning walking around with eve and talking about how pretty the trees are. Naked. I don't think I'll be satisfied unless I get to do something really cool, or at least really cool to me. But otherwise, I'd be satisfied with a wife and kids and a good job that doesn't bore me to death, and enough money to spend on theater tickets.

[redbaron]

Metaphorically, I want to be adam early in the morning walking around with eve and talking about how pretty the trees are. Naked.

metaphorically, I want to travel on a boat. To see where I'm going and steer the rudder while someone else manages the sails. To feel the wind on my face and the water underneath and be calmly rocked to sleep every night.

OR on a train and feel the power of the engine propelling me forward, always forward with the rumble of the tracks underneath and the clouds, mountains, landscape passing by through the window.

[norph]

I have no desire to pursue any overriding life goal.

[Simon Ssmall]

Yeah, I don't care about success qualifiers at all. Fulfilling some kind of niche or optimizing strengths etc doesn't really drive me at all. When I say personal fulfillment and enjoying life I really mean that in the most basic way. I just want to end my day feeling good and do what it takes to feel that way. I want to pursue my interests because they interest me and for no other reason. I won't lie, I'm pretty selfish in the sense that I care about all these things only for me. I don't like disappointing the people I care about and want them to be proud of me, but at the same time I want that to be a by-product of what I enjoy.

+1 More or less I am the same way.

[Creepy-bg]

everything that vero said +2

[1981slater]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHIEO1_0Ulo]YouTube - Metallica-Battery[/ame]

[1981slater]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEL6_SuQCu8&feature=related]YouTube - Metallica - Master Of Puppets live Seattle 1989[/ame]

[redbaron]

I don't really have one. I enjoy life by default so it's not really a goal, more like a mode of operating. I guess if I had to pick ,it'd be freedom. Free to go and do as I please. It kinda affects everything I say and do. (Financial freedom, etc)

yeah, freedom is a good one.

[Absurd]

To live 1000 years.

[silverchris9]

metaphorically, I want to travel on a boat. To see where I'm going and steer the rudder while someone else manages the sails. To feel the wind on my face and the water underneath and be calmly rocked to sleep every night.

OR on a train and feel the power of the engine propelling me forward, always forward with the rumble of the tracks underneath and the clouds, mountains, landscape passing by through the window.

I like both of these.

[Creepy-female]

God I wish I could figure out what mine is. I know I never will but at the same time I doubt the desire will ever fade so... sorta logically speaking I guess the goal of my life is contentedness. Not like complacency though, not something you slowly sink or ease into. That feeling that you achieve once you've accomplished a goal. I don't know if it matters so much what that goal is or even if the quality or quantity of the work put in are important so long as that sense of achievement is reached.

I don't know..I identify with your description of goal setting/achieving....and I do it compulsively.

And yet living from one goal to the next..it's anticlimactic. Reaching the plateau of your respective goal always seems to me to be something of a letdown once the elation wears off. You can't stay in the achievement.

It's basically bewildering to my mindset that my states change. I can justify actions/reactions logically, and keep repeating "this consequence, this consequence" over and over..and try to make decisions based on that..but the way the state feels overrides that. Every damn time. Like "it will be different tommorrow?" When I'm sad, it's always going to be that way. When I'm hopeful, my imagination carves paths a thousand miles into the future.

The only thing that's really helped me track my states in any meaningful way is writing. It always feels awkward to..change. When you dash off or are stilted unwilling into chase the next state, you forget how it felt to be in the previous one. But sometimes they repeat..I never remembered enough details to figure out that they repeated or had the feeling that something was similar and that perhaps they were signals. But when I read my writing I feel sane because everything that corresponded to the situation is there, details are there, and I feel that I can get a more accurate sense of what is going on or what happened in the past.

I don't like summaries. I can tell everyone.."I never got along with my parents. I'm just taking some time to breath." And they'll respond to that summary with some vague "everyone goes through that. It's hard." Sometimes it's ok because you do sense the sincerity of their intentions behind those words. But sometimes it's difficult because it's like they can't just..put themselves in the situation. And suspend judgment. I can give you a summary about my choices and then it becomes something for you to comment on so you can guide me.

But I'd rather you said..when I was twelve..my aunt gave me this necklace from peru. She was eccentric, always bringing weird items from foreign places. I wore it to the homeschool co-op, to a grey carpet and bulletin boards and that red haired schoolmate I tolerated and square rooms with projectors and florescent lights. I wore this necklace, something of a bulb shape, beaded, red and blue and black..and while mom walked me into the halls, she said..we shouldn't wear that here. We want to give a Godly impression to these worldly people.

It's like..what do you do if that's what you're taught..that everything you want is wrong, something small is sinful, something pretty must be denied..it's not even abstract. It's like you get a cold, anxious feeling in your chest every time you reach for something you want.

I'd rather you said..that elderly lady smelled like baby powder, her lips reddened garishly, her dignity intact as her shaking hands grasped the tray.

I'd like to say..in a moment where you're not distracted..I'd like to say..to people..at the height of prednisone, trying to keep a spinning room together, trying to make sense of family, a crumbling body, an eminent disease, I said "All this over a fucking sweatshirt"...and you came over and hit me in the mouth. The odd thing is I could forget that. I could forget the qualifiers that I just set up in order for me to feel I have an objective footing to justify myself by. "You did that to a young girl on a drug...what a heresy!" But that isn't..important. That wasn't what I was thinking about, what was important at the time, I wasn't connecting the dots. That may be the overriding perception gleaned after observing situations for a while. But at the time I never thought it had anything to do with those things...and maybe it didn't. Maybe it still doesn't. Those kind of perceptions/sayings are constructs, excuses. When I talk, things are stark enough that you're sort of shocked into agreeing. But what I'm saying..isn't my justification. I don't care if they make sense to you. I don't want to have to accommodate that. I'd rather just feel them.

Those convenient phrases were things I was holding up, a summary I could offer people, to explain something more essential being smothered I could never quite put into words. That more important thing surfaces for me in vivid detail, but's easy to forget vivid detail when you're constantly bombarded by it. Memories fade. You come away with impressions, you come into pain again, and it doesn't connect to anything..you just feel it. You talk about the previous situation..if you tell other people things enough, maybe you can forget your own real awareness. "No, we just have issues. Yes, I know how this plays out in general. Yes I'm aware of my decisions." When it's just like..fuck this. Quit talking to me..quit criticizing..don't change me. Just be with me. I don't mean to be trite, but don't try to figure me out. Just hold my fucking hand while things hurt, and let go and let me fly when they don't. You don't have to stay if you don't want to.

It's like you have goals, and then you have in between things..I don't know. I can't say that "life is the journey" or it sort of becomes this weird goal in itself. Everything I envision for myself becomes this state, this static concept, a sort of cage of which I have to trip clumsily out of and into the next one. I feel that I have come to understand what having a static nature actually means. At first I was confused..what does it mean when you "see life as a bunch of snapshots instead of a moving film"..that's so vague. When you have a more visceral understanding, it's hard to trace..and patterns take a long time to surface.

But umm I think I got off topic. I kind of want..simple things. Things that I can't even really say because it's like blasphemy, like someone is going to jump out of nowhere and tear me down for it, for wanting those sinful things. And yet it's all in my mind..I just sat in countless sermons and internalized everything they said into this sort of pissy inner critic. It's hard, because I want to do the right thing too. And modesty is sitting in your own sweat. Diligence is denying beauty. Mercy is letting people that you don't want trace dirt into your lungs. Being taught is groveling. Self awareness is surrendering to the hole in your head. And going on is crying. You're crazy. Yep. Let everyone else fucking tell you their analysis because you don't speak, so of course you don't have one! I feel it's taken me awhile to discover...I was authentic in the first place. Before all that shit, I actually had something of value. And I do, I do now, it's instinctual, I'm different but I'm not gone, and I can go on.

I like freedom. People always told me it was a weight, but I don't feel that way. They told me I should feel scared, and although sometimes I do, it's not enough to define freedom..it feels like freedom involves this big unknown space I don't know about, but I want to keep living so I can find out.

[redbaron]

that made me wanna cry.

[xerx]

I'd say the goal of my life is sort of the opposite of that. I need to achieve something important, but I really don't care if it makes me happy in the end. Doing it is the interesting and creative part and the goal has to reflect something vital and essential, not the reward itself, which I'd probably have no use for anyway.

[Rubicon]

To inspire. To create some life in someone else.

[redbaron]

To inspire. To create some life in someone else.

yeah lately I've realized how happy it makes me to affect & inspire other people, for good.

[Park]

To inspire. To create some life in someone else.

Ewwwwwwww

[Creepy-female]

that made me wanna cry.

aw haha

[xerx]

I'd say the goal of my life is sort of the opposite of that. I need to achieve something important, but I really don't care if it makes me happy in the end. Doing it is the interesting and creative part and the goal has to reflect something vital and essential, not the reward itself, which I'd probably have no use for anyway.

I forgot to quote JWC3's OP. >.<

[Rubicon]

Ewwwwwwww

[The Exception]

To live 1000 years.

I'd go for that.