Life's Goal

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I presume everyone knows and has a goal in life.

Or perhaps I am too presumptuous.

Maybe most people do not know what their goal is or should be. You try to set up goals as you were taught you should do. But each time, like each New Year’s resolution, you immediately strayed from your decisions the moment you made it.

Then maybe there are those who just set up short term goals, and leave the long term question unanswered. And you move, or stagger, as the case may be, from goal to goal, if necessary changing goals even before attaining them, depending on needs or opportunities.

And yet they may be some who have abandoned the notion of life’s goal altogether, and just drift along in life, and let life set its goal for you instead. And this life includes the people around you, the current work and your circumstances you are in, etc.

I have a scenario for each.

For those who don’t know or don’t have a goal, would you listen to someone who says he knows what your life’s goal ought to be? And he knows the reason why too, namely that it is the ‘best’ for you. The situation is somewhat akin to when you were a child and your parents told you what you should and should not do, or conversely you as a parent telling your child.

And for those who know their goals, let me ask if you now can live for a long long time, and death do not seems a possibility, and not only so, but you remain always healthy, never sick, and when injured, your body self-heals, would it then change your goal in life?

But even more, not only is death a very very distanced horizon, but also with each passing hour and day, you become increasingly knowledgable and wise, comprehending mysteries yet unknown to mankind. Again will it change your goal in life?

And there is still some more. Now, additionally, you are able to make things happen, ie you can bring down fire with a word, for example. You can make rain come or stop rain altogether, or the Dow Jones move up or down as you will. Again does your last changed goal change?

Finally, over and above all the above, you are now absolutely and truly free. You are no longer constrained by physical and biological laws. You can fly, walk through walls, go back in time, or fast forward to the future, be at two places at one time, etc. And given your accumulated wisdom and knowledge you can unconditioned all the conditioning the environment have done to you, and condition yourself in any way you want. And human laws can’t touch you. You are above the law. With one word even the mightiest armies will vapourised in an instance, and no one dare touch you. Now do your goal for life change again this time?

So what do you guys say?

2

Thats a cool subject, you should write a story about it :smiley:

But seriously, I am but a 15 year old boy, of course my dreams have changed over the years. As we grow, not just physically but mentally as well… and our wisdom reaches new heights, our past selves seem ignorant and naive. Everyones dreams change until they settle into that niche that the feel comfortable with.

3

Always bloody tomorrow. It’ll happen tomorrow, I’ll get there tomorrow, peace tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, while the present is starved of attention.
JJ

4

If you do not know your destination do you know where to take your next step? Or it does not matter? Just one step at a time will do?. All that matters is to take a next step, any step. It doesnt matter if you walked in circles, or you missed going the furthest by walking randomly, or you end up in the wrong places. Is that what you are saying?

5

I must have missed something. Somewhere I got the foolish idea that life is the destination.

JT

6

Being someone who was never taught the importance of goals. I was always interested in what everyone had to say about my future. Because if I did not like it I could get a deeper insight to who I was and am from an outside source. But now that I have goals and am starting to achieve my goals I am finding that everyone is angry with me. Because they say I should be a writer and not a computer programmer wich is my goal. And the second question. If I had goals. And found out I could not die or get sick or anything. And I got smarter. I would drop my goals and work on curing all diseases and hunger war and hatred. Hopfully creating a world that I would be proud to live in.

7

slc sounds kind of like me. i was drawn to the dark side of computer programming since it was relatively easy to start doing, and it paid real well right out of college.

all i have ever heard about career programmers however is that it is just not healthy being one. hunched over a computer is generally how i spend my day at home, but not programming. my brain is just too valuable to throw away on what seems to be little more than highly trained manual labor. if your computer science major is anything like the one at drexel university, which is an engineering school, then you are going to learn an assload of math and i doubt you will use it very often. math is a brain prison as far as i could see, and i got 690 on my math sats and only got to calc 3!

dont be a computer scientist if its not your dream job. i read your sociophobia thread and im pretty sure being a computer programmer is the best way to keep yourself afraid of non-text based humans for the rest of your life.

the meaning of life is to do whatever you want. and if you really dont want to treat your neighbor like yourself, youre an animal and this rule doesnt apply to you, nor should the protection from murder granted to real humans.

8

“The meaning of life is to do whatever you want.”

Try to deny that, suckers!

9

I tend to agree with Camus and Woody Allen on the meaning of life. I don’t think there really is none.

In the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus says something along the lines of “Just because life has no meaning, why does that mean life is not worth living?”

I whole-heartedly agree. My life has no meaning. I have no real “goals,” as I feel they would just be adding a fake meaning.

I mean, I have “goals”. My goal for tomorrow is to go to the post office and run some errands. My goal for the season is to go out and start dating again. But they’re really not finish lines, they’re just things I need to get done.

I wouldn’t even really call “the enjoyment of life” a goal in itself. I’d object to it on the same grounds with which I (vehemently) object to Objectivism/Ethical Egoism. …it rules out altruism.

Again, look at Sisyphus rolling his rock up that hill, over and over. No meaning. No real “enjoyment” of life at large. But that brief moment of happiness he has at the bottom of the hill when he reflects is good enough to keep him going.

10

I tend to agree with Camus and Woody Allen on the meaning of life. I don’t think there really is none.

In the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus says something along the lines of “Just because life has no meaning, why does that mean life is not worth living?”

I whole-heartedly agree. My life has no meaning. I have no real “goals,” as I feel they would just be adding a fake meaning.

I mean, I have “goals”. My goal for tomorrow is to go to the post office and run some errands. My goal for the season is to go out and start dating again. But they’re really not finish lines, they’re just things I need to get done.

I wouldn’t even really call “the enjoyment of life” a goal in itself. I’d object to it on the same grounds with which I (vehemently) object to Objectivism/Ethical Egoism. …it rules out altruism.

Again, look at Sisyphus rolling his rock up that hill, over and over. No meaning. No real “enjoyment” of life at large. But that brief moment of happiness he has at the bottom of the hill when he reflects is good enough to keep him going.

11

I personally have short goals never life goals
There are things in which I will continue to do for as long as I can others wise my goal is to live a happy fulfilling life in which when I die I don’t need to say I wish I would have done that
All those things would just be fun to have but I would feel very badly if I messed up some ones life who did not have it coming to them so to say

But that is it I feel I will go through life but a wanderer

12

You Are right I am going to look into transfering schools after this quarter. If my grades are not where I want them to be. So I will wait and see.

13

Life is meaningful but goals are personal and subjective.Everyone has goals,wheather he admits it or not.Let’s get to the bottom line of the definition of goals.Goals can be redused to desires,the desire for food,the desire for sex,or the desire of presidency.
Some are biological and some are social.

14

Seems to me that the ultimate goal for anyone alive is death, whether or not it’s recognized.

Death is just as much a part of “life” as birth. I am quite curious as to what happens after my body expires and my consciousness moves on, assuming something will “happen”.

Other than that…do any of our “goals” truly matter, on a cosmic perspective?

15

razn, you should read Inevitability in religion, you would probably benefit… but IU do believe that the meaning of life is a personal battle that is impossible to be shown. Everyone needs to discover their own meaning for no one will truly know until the end, although there are many right answers. So, instead of arguing your theories with others about the meaning of life when your opinions will not change, you should fight your own battles alone, and realize that the truth is the prize at the end of the maze.

16

Of course our goals might change. Are you suggesting that people are only capable of having one goal for their entire existence? Thats ridiculous. Plenty of people change their life goals late in life, or they don’t have any coherent goals at all. When people radically change, achieving wisdom especially, their goals are very likely to change.

17

Thats not my point. What I am asking is do you know what your goal should be? Even if man can become God-like, does he really knows what is good for himself and for others, and what the true meaning of existence.

Even if man have all knowledge and capability to colonise the solar system and beyond, have we found the meaning for all these human activities? Why are running hither tither, making babies, by one means or another, seeking pleasure and happiness and knowledge and so on.

Is there really a meaning to all these? Or the conclusion of the matter is meaninglessness, everything is meaninglessness.

18

I really don’t know what gives you the right to say that. Also, I don’t know what makes you think you’re so smart that you know there couldn’t be a meaning to these things. My opinion is, that you’re rendered incapable of beleiving man is capable of anything by himself, that by himself he is a useless, mindless breeding machine.

19

If we are animals, do you not think we harbour the same life goals? Succesion, survival. Life is the reason for life.

However it just so happens that we are a higher order to the rest of the worlds ‘animals’ so our goal of survival is added to, and complexed. we now harbour the goal to improve. So in this sence, it would suggest that any life that doesnt improve the life of people, is then meaningless. However everybody has some sort of impact on sombody else, and these impacts, or influences create us. So everybody is in it (albeit inescapably) for everybody else, as well as themselves. Presumably a cumulative progression is made of many personal progressions. So, as long as we are learning, improving and helping then we are forfilling our life goals as we have set them. However as i say, we created these goals. Survival seems inescapable however, so we cannot really lay claim to having created the goal of survival. But if we created everything superfluous to that then theres no reason why we cannot change them. However if people all over the world seem to follow the same goals, of improving (which may or not be a manifestation of survival) can we not argue that these are then innate?

20

Is it that there is a life’s goal or just life?

The idea of having a goal implies that one does not know what they are suppose to be doing therefore they have a goal in order to provide meaning to their life.

The only goal that I see there is is to live one’s life.

Now to further your discussion, can this one goal change as one grows in wisdom…the answer would be no.

If your goal is to live your life there is no need to change the goal and furthermore there becomes no goal.

The notion that one must have a goal stems from fear, fear that they will not achieve something and that ahievement is built on one’s own ego for self permanancy. I perhpas I am wrong but I do think that all that is required of one self is to live…perhaps help other’s to live their lives too through provision. However, one would have to be mindful that their goal is not to help other’s :wink:

interesting read…