The Benefit of a Goalless Life

Ever thought about living your life without any goals? It’s called Action without Intent. Paradoxical really because adhering to goals creates a state of anxiety, where we structure our physical and mental life either be a success or a failure. If we succeed- we’re pleased- if we fail- we suffer. This Yo-Yo of emotions seems normal to us, but it is precisely what The Buddha was talking about when he spoke of Dukkha, or suffering. The message here is that we don’t have to bounce around like that – there is another state of mind without suffering.

But without goals, we’d never do anything worthwhile would we?! We’d just laze around, drink beer and watch TV! Sounds good to me.

Once again the paradox is that someone with no goals can never be lazy – their life is always active and participatory.

With goals, we are transient between times of energetic activity, trying to accomplish our aspirations and expectations. Times of stress-relief, where we escape into television, alcohol, music, holidays, or chilling.

Even TV, booze and other established stress relievers aren’t necessarily wrong but when used to take the edge off the day it’s a sure sign that something is seriously wrong with your day.

Provoking the question- How can accomplish something with out goals?

Imagine that you have a pile of dishes in the sink. There are two ways to look at the task of doing the dishes.

First, which represents our usual method, we look at the dishes, sigh, and roll up our sleeves. They have to be done, after all! But since we really don’t want to do them, we have a resistance to the task. We want to finish the dam things as soon as possible, so that we can move on to more worthwhile activities. So we create goals. Get the dishes done quickly! Which gets very frustrating when we encounter that burnt crusty area on the pot that just refuses to budge, or we drop a wine glass and have to take extra time picking up the shards of glass in the sink. Working ourselves into frenzy in the process.

Finishing the dishes is very similar to many other goals in our lives, because it promises something better when the goal is accomplished. We feel that when we get into the perfect love relationship, or attain financial independence, or get our degree, or retire – when our goal is attained, we can really start Living. Until then, we just have to make the best of a mediocre situation.

But there are other ways of approaching the dish washing task! Walk over, and we just get the job of doing the dishes done. You don’t have to get them done. Just wash the dish we’re washing, simple. Paying attention to doing the dishes actually gets the job done faster. And, because we’re being mindful, we probably won’t break the wine glass. Actually accomplishing the goal more efficiently because we weren’t intent on finishing.

Living this way, maybe I’ll just do one dish. With no goal in mind, I’m free to make the choice, perfectly free to do that. No standards to adhere to whatsoever, makes it easy to embark on tasks in the first place, but it also means that I’ll probably end up doing them all anyway. Why? Because when my mind isn’t distracted with all the things it could be doing, it concentrates on what is actually going on. Believe it or not, washing the dishes is an amazing experience. That is, it’s an amazing experience if we are actually there when we’re doing them.

Much of life is like washing dishes – the only way we can be irritated is if our mind is focused on results, on the future, or on our many goals and aspirations. Focusing on these things does not make us more productive – it actually makes us less productive because we’re spending the majority of our energy in constant patterns of circular thought and worry. If we experience the Now, we find that the only really important moment is the one we’re in.

This requires a complete overhaul of our learned way of functioning. We can believe that these teachings and indoctrinations are the only methods to get things completed in this World. Then, suddenly, we’ll be doing the dishes and we’ll recognise that the only thing that makes unpleasantness is that we’re eager to get the job done! That’s when, a revelation that- for the first time in our lives, we’ll actually wash the dishes, realising that this is what we’ve been missing out on our whole lives! We’ve ignored the actual sensation of Living and instead focused on the fantasy of our imagination. – all the futures that may or may not take place. Sadly, even if those futures do come to be, we won’t be there to enjoy them, because we’ll never have learned to experience where we are now.

Whether you’re doing the dishes, preparing for the biggest business presentation of your life, or approaching your own death, there is only one place to be – Now – the place where everything is actually going on. Enjoy it and live just live for life.

Stumble It!