Does one need a goal, you ask?
Is it not the path we thread the goal in itself? Is it not every step we take, every blade of grass we move, every new vista we encounter, the new experience we should look to? Or should we gaze at the stars, ignoring the world around us?
Why do we look to future for meaning, sense of accomplishment, and steadiness? Because we are enslaved. And it seems that only by looking to some imaginary future can we escape our enslavement.
We appraise ourselves based on what we accomplish. But we do not appraise ourselves on walking through the blizzard of our thoughts, or on sailing the treacherous streams of life and keeping our boat steady. There must be a goal, you say, that one thing we can show to the world, and the world can nodd its head in approval.
But the journey is in the mind. But how do you get approval and validation by what you achieved in your mind? The world does not care how you defeated your madness, wrestled it into submission. What can you show for yourself, they ask. Give us something we can sell, they say. Give us something we can use, so that we can grow and cut more forests. We don’t care about how you overcame your anxiety.
A goal is a trick. You fool yourself by setting it, you burn with desire to reach it, only to look past it once you are there. Because it is the path you desire, not the goal. And it is not the output that is intrinsic to us, it is the journey we take on our perpetual quest for the unattainable.
But we will die. What will be left of us, if not our goals and outcomes? There lies the fear, the incapability to face our own insignificance. So we invent goals. Because goals will tell you “I am important” and “What I do is important”. And the world will praise you for your goals. And you will fool yourself that you are little more than a spec of dust in an endless universe.
You must have goals, they say. How will we measure you otherwise.
There is no goal. Only the path. And serenity is in walking the neverending path, not reaching the imaginary destination.
