The Argument Against Living Your Life Fully

“The purpose of life is to fart around. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
- Kurt Vonnegut

We've embraced the notion of living a full life. Well, at least in public. I'm working 24-7, we brag to anyone who will listen. And of course, this is a lie and that is just one of the things wrong with the whole notion of living life fully.

Rather than 24-7, it might make more sense to live life from peak to peak. This suggests a life punctuated by bouts of love making rather than hours and hours of hand holding, or a mad sprint in a race of seconds rather than a stroll that goes on and on and on for hours. Peaks are not only wonderful - they demand recovery time that looks suspiciously slack jawed and glazed eyed.

And the more we scale these peaks, the more readily we can repeat the trick of finding those peak moments that distort time, cause us to lose self consciousness, and let only the task at hand command our attention, finding our perfect balance between challenge and skill. It is through these peak experiences that we are actualized. And it is from these peak experiences that we need to recover.

For one thing, post-peak order is the opposite of post-traumatic disorder. Peak experiences when we are in flow are hard to attain and impossible to maintain, but once we've had them, we feel more alive, more sure about our life's direction and purpose. Peak experiences lend clarity to life that would be lacking in an "every day is the same" kind of life.

The creative cycle includes peak moments and time that seems, on the surface, wildly unproductive. Aha! moments are preceded by incubation (which is preceded by immersion in a topic and problem set). The Aha! is a peak moment when things click to take shape, but incubation looks about as productive as a chicken sitting on eggs. And yet without this incubation time, its rare that anything pops out of the "ain't there" ether into the plane of existence, that miracle of creativity.

Lest the reader think that I'm just making all this up, offering this odd notion that one's life is best spent in a state other than flat-line exertion, allow me to quote from Warren Buffet, who, last I heard, is worth about $35 billion, a net worth that usually suffices as an attention-getting device in this world.

Think of yourself as you go through life as standing at the plate and people throwing you pitches. It is a very special baseball game. There is no one calling the balls and strikes and you can stand there forever. You have got all these people in the bleachers saying, "Hey, swing you bum!" on every second pitch. You just have to learn to ignore them and when a pitch comes along and it is straight but it is a little high inside, you let it pass. Another one comes along and it is a little low outside. Every once in a while a pitch comes along that looks like the sweetest, juiciest, fattest pitch you are ever going to see. And when it does, you swing from your heels on it. You come out of your shoes on it. That is how you go through life. And you are only going to get about ten swings like that, maybe five swings. That is what you wait for. Too many people go through life batting at every other pitch. So just wait for your opportunities and when they come you swing from your heels.

Don't live your life fully. Don't swing at every pitch so that you're exhausted when that juicy pitch finally comes across the plate. Instead, go from peak to peak and shamelessly savor the valleys in between.

The Voice in Your Head

From Overheard in New York
Female #1: You know when you think something and then a voice in your head is like, 'Yeah, yeah, say that out loud! That would be a good thing to say!' and then you do it and you're like, 'Well, that was a mistake...'?
Female #2: Yeah.
Female #1: Yeah, I think I just did that.

The biggest mistake we continually make is simply this: we confuse the narrator with the event. Specifically, we confuse the voice in our head with reality. "He is such a dweeb," the voice says, and we file that commentary away as a fact. "I can't do that," we tell ourselves, and, again, file that away as a fact.

Facts are hard to get to. It took mankind about 10,000 years before it arrived at the empirical method, at science. Not all people are scientists and very few of us seem capable of seeing the facts about ourselves. The first step towards that may be as simple (and as hard) as merely acknowledging that your internal narration is not the same thing as reality.

Painful Experiences

Certain qualities seem to be universally admired. Selflessness. Patience. A positive spirit.

Yet it seems that many of the virtues that most of us want come from experiences that most of us shirk. The painful loss of a business or even a child. Or even the hunger pains and muscle ache required to develop a chiseled physique.

It is worth remembering when you are going through a difficult experience that you may well gain a characteristic or two that you've always so admired in others. This very hope may be the hope that you need to get through this experience.

Heroes & Individuals

"I asked myself 'What is the myth you are living?' and found that I did not know. So ... I took it upon myself to get to know 'my' myth and I regarded this as the task of tasks ... I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me."
- C.J. Jung

Charles Tart makes the point that a hypnotist, in a matter of minutes, can program you to do things. How much more powerfully can society program you during the course of your life?

The purported purpose of life until now has been to be a good Christian, a good citizen, a good employee. That is, purpose has been given to the individual by social institutions.

The genuine individual distances himself from these institutions to do the hard work of defining herself with a degree of autonomy from them. The hero comes back from this shape-shifting exercise and transforms these institutions. It's hard work - and nobody's got to do it.

Failure

• Age 22: Lost job
• Age 23: Defeated for state legislature
• Age 24: Failed in business
• Age 27: Nervous breakdown
• Age 34: Ran for congress and defeated
• Age 39: Defeated again
• Age 46: Ran for senate and defeated
• Age 47: Defeated for nomination for vice president
• Age 50: Defeated again for senate
• Age 51: Abraham Lincoln became the 16th President of the U.S.

The difference between beiong a success or failure may be determined by something as simple as when you stop.

What is the difference between a day when joy grabs you by the lapels and head butts you into giddy gladness and days when you're inclined to turn off the phone and go fetal? It might be your choice of recreational drug. Or, it might be the difference between living in possibility and living in expectation.

It's a complex world and expectations are simple. So many things can happen that the odds of our very expectations being realized are remote, like winning a lottery. When the world fails to meet our expectations it hasn't failed. The world is still there - busily buzzing at the intersection of past and future, what has been and what is possible, just as it has been for your entire life. The world is innocent. We are the ones who occasionally lose sight of the fact that we're one in six billion and unlikely to do much to steer this unwieldy planet. We'd have better luck driving an office building and yet we persist to sit at the window and honk our horns, shake our fist, and feel frustrated when the building next to us won't get out of the way and let us through. Our expectations are often as silly as spouting Confucius to an infant or tickling the belly of a businessman.

What are the odds that our expectations of life will ever be as amazing as life? What these finite minds project onto an infinite universe will always be some fraction of what is possible.

With that in mind, here is a low-calorie, faux-fortune cookie:
Let the world be what it is and simply see what it has in store for you. Open yourself up to possibility today, laying aside the stale expectations that would otherwise drive you like a flock of bored habits.

Two Secrets of Happiness

It occurred to me today that a large measure of my happiness can be attributed to two things. One, I'm easily amused. Two, I'm easily fascinated.

Playing the Time Horizon Accordion

"The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever."
- Anatole France

The pendulum has seemingly swung back to an emphasis on getting things done. There are aa variety of good sources for help on this topic. David Allen is the latest of the productivity gurus to offer useful tips about how to be efficient and effective. I used to teach seminars for Franklin Covey and can personally vouch for the value of their approach.

It seems to me, though, that one of the most important decisions you need to make has to do with your time horizon. More important than what you get done in a day is whether you are living your day through the filter of the day-to-day or the filter of a lifetime. Are you going to judge your accomplishments by daily goals or by your goals for a decade?

Is your time horizon the week? This is a common orientation for businesses that seem to delight in the weekly status reports. I have found that this tends to feed a frantic feeling as people continually scramble to accomplish lots of activities before the next weekly report. Too often, the result is a series of weekly accomplishments that merely support the status quo, tasks done superficially and quickly. To be fair, it also helps people to "just do it!" A person can stack up quite the list of accomplishments this way; the question is whether any of the accomplishments so important at the end of each week will still seem to matter at the end of the year.

Is your time horizon the year? Are you sorting through task possibilities with the annual Christmas letter or your New Year's resolutions in mind? This orientation can profoundly change the focus of someone who has conscientiously worked to complete tasks each week. It can change your priorities to the extent that you actually neglect what once seemed important. If your goal is to visit Venice, for example, you might sacrifice your savings goals for this one year in order to accomplish a goal that might otherwise never materialize. If your goal is to get a new job, you may actually sacrifice some degree of quality in your current job in order to find time to hunt for a job that you would otherwise never find time for.

Is your time horizon the roughly 3 to 5 years it takes to start a business or complete a degree? Are you continually choosing what to do and what not to do through the filter of equity creation, choosing tasks based on whether you think that they'll add value to your business? Are you accumulating college credits with an eye towards a BA or MBA degree? If so, you will probably neglect a variety of things that are important to you; socializing, for instance, will take a back seat to homework or dealing with customer problems. Your goal for a balanced life may have to be deferred until you are through this phase.

Is your time horizon the roughly 20 years it takes to raise a child? Does your to do list revolve around the developmental stages of the child, choosing what to do and what not to do thinking about how that will impact your child's adult life? Again, making this choice will color all other choices; you may make sacrifices to your career because they conflict with your goals for your child(ren).

Is your time horizon a life time? Do you have a vision of what you're trying to do with your life, of what you want to have changed in the world? You are always giving up something - sacrificing something. The question is what are you sacrificing and for what cause? Are you giving up your future for now or are you giving up now for your future?

Neither short-term or long-term orientation is a panacea. If your time horizon is too distant, it is easy to justify a lack of progress every day; if your time horizon is too near, it is easy to become frantic about the daily signs of progress. The first orientation can make you lazy and the second can make you a nervous wreck. You can continually defer enjoyment in ways that ensure that you'll never experience it; or you can seize enjoyment today in ways that basically ensure that it'll be even harder to find in the future.

So perhaps the answer lies in playing your time horizon like an accordion - pushing out the time horizon at some points in your life and squeezing it down to the very near term at others, alternately taking the long view and then engaging yourself in the smallest moments of time. What is key, then, is to play the accordion of time horizon and not let it play you.

Lessons Learned from Parenting

Tomorrow my youngest turns 18 and next week his sister is 20.

I've learned a few things about parenting. I've learned to kiss them on the head when I'm confused by them or frustrated by them or delighted with them. This seems to work on 18 month old children and 18 year old children alike. I've learned to call them "precious children," as a reminder to me and to them. And I've changed my mind about my job as a parent.

When these two little people came into the world, I actually thought it was my job to help turn them into certain kind of people. A couple of decades later, I'm come around to the opinion that my job is very different.

Anyone with children is amazed by what distinct personalities they are. They come into the world at a particular trajectory, seemingly destined to be a particular somebody, and it is not exactly clear that a parent can do much about it. Well, other than make them feel self-conscious or guilty about who they are.

So, how has this realization changed my notion of what it means to be a parent? Rather than try to change or shape who they are, I see my job as helping them to figure out how to succeed, how to navigate life, given that they are who they are. As we stand beside each other, trying to figure this out, I learn one more thing; they usually have a better idea than me about how to do that.

The Timing of Success or Failure

I wonder if the difference between success and failure isn't sometimes simply a difference in timing. If you stop too soon, you're a failure. If you persist, you are a success.

The Paradox of Meaning

“We are here on Earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know.”
- W. H. Auden

If you look up the definition of a word, you'll find it references other words. Meaning is an oddly circular notion.

So what is it that gives a life meaning? I suppose that it, too, is an oddly circular notion. Our lives have meaning when they connect with other lives. We're unlikley to discover the meaning of our lives with a deep dive into our navels.

Flow as Your Compass

A compass is different from a map. A compass provides an orientation. Flow can be a compass for you as you find your way in life.

Flow is a term popularized by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi. For decades, Csikszentmihalyi has researched happiness and engagement. Asking people about their happiest moments, he frequently heard them use the term, "I was just in the flow." It is when we are fully engaged in life - whether it is in conversation or rock climbing, surgery or problem-solving - that we feel the happiest. A couple of the characteristics of flow are losing track of time and becoming unselfconscious.

One other characteristic of flow is a balance between challenge and skill. If your skill is great but the task you're doing is not particularly challenging, you feel bored or, at best, in control. If your skill is poor but the task you are doing is challenging, you feel stressed or anxious. But when your challenge and your skill level are both high, you experience flow. Your skill is sufficient for the task, but it requires your full engagement to do it.

In this way, flow can work like a compass. When you begin to feel too much in control or bored, you need a new challenge. When you begin to feel anxious or stressed, you need a new skill, or need to develop your skill more fully. The absence of flow can point you in the direction you should be going. I would argue that if one subordinates career development to long-term attainment of flow, one's career will ultimately do well. Finding flow means following a path of development.

If you accept a job that soon bores you, you'll probably find yourself facing one of two things. You may find your wages stagnating or you may find your employer eventually unable to afford you. If you don't develop skills needed to overcome stress in a job, you'll probably soon find yourself fired or demoted.

There is a temptation to stay in a job that lets you feel in control. This is particularly tempting for people who already feel overwhelmed by life and don't particularly want a big challenge at work. Women in poor relationships or burdened with extra work at home may well opt for jobs that let them feel in control rather than jobs that require their full engagement, for instance.

It is often easier to find flow than to find a "direction." Flow can be a compass for people willing to struggle to stay engaged in life and work. Insisting on the experience of flow does not just mean that you'll experience more happiness and satisfaction in life. It means that you'll be compelled to develop your potential.

Transform Self or Transform Society?

"We have become the tools of our tools," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote some 150 years ago.

Think about the various ways in which we subordinate our goals to the goals of our tools - the institutions like bank, corporations, and nations that, presumably, are mere tools for humanity. People go through hell because of odd religious beliefs, suffer financial stress after banks give them money, and miss out on profitable opportunities because of work commitments.

One of my beliefs is that we're on the verge of a new economy, a social revolution. The Industrial Revolution did at least two things: it transformed that era's dominant institution (the nation-state of absolute monarchs) and it helped society overcome the limit of capital. Banks, bond and stock markets, and factories were all social inventions designed to overcome the limit to progress - capital - and their explosion in popularity defined the Industrial Revolution.

In the last century, another economy emerged. This Information Age transformed society's dominant institution (the financial market of robber barons) and overcame the limit of knowledge workers. The modern university, information technology and the modern corporation were all social inventions designed to overcome the limit to progress - knowledge workers - and their explosion in popularity defined the Information Age. The new economy will not be designed to overcome the limit of land, capital, or knowledge work. Rather, it will be designed to overcome the limit of entrepreneurship. It will transform today's dominant institution - the corporation.

What is entrepreneurship? It is the act of social invention, of institutionalizing a source of value for the community. Steve Jobs and Henry Ford are entrepreneurs; less obviously, so was Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther. They are to organizations what inventors are to products.

One element of entrepreneurship rarely commented upon is the relationship of the entrepreneur to the institution. Most of us conform our selves to the institutions in which we find ourselves; an entrepreneur founds an institution that they conform to the entrepreneur.

The economy of the last century was defined by the popularization of knowledge work. Think of the explosion in the levels of education from 1900 to 2000. In 1900, only a small fraction of the American population between the age of 13 and 17 was engaged in formal education; by 2000, only a small fraction was not engaged in formal education. Imagine a parallel with entrepreneurship during the next fifty years.

The economy of this century will be defined by the popularization of entrepreneurship. One consequence is the transformation of what it means to become better. Efforts to change the self - self-help, "becoming a better person," and realizing one's potential -- will themselves be fundamentally changed. Instead of working to conform the self to society, we'll be conforming society to our selves. I don't believe it is possible to overstate the implications of this shift.

Western Civilization has been defined by amazing institutions and the role of the individual has been to conform to those institutions. We are called up on to be good Christians by the Church, good citizens by the nation-state, fiscally responsible by the bank, and good employees by the corporation.

What if the average person were shaping institutions to realize his or her potential rather than conforming to institutions?

Finding Our Way

Yesterday, I learned what might be the secret to finding one's way in life.

My wife and I were at UC San Diego. We arrived early for our play and I wanted to scamper over to the university bookstore to see what special treasures they might have. This seems like a simple task save for one thing: we San Diegans, apparently struck with guilt about how easy our lives are in this land with the climate of an indoor shopping mall, have a propensity to construct convoluted paths. Horton Plaza, the downtown shopping mall, is constructed so that one can actually see a store across the way but not know how to get there sans the cable and pulley systems that someone like James Bond might carry in his wallet. UC San Diego is similar - a beautiful, big campus that seemingly opts for meandering sidewalks and foot paths wherever it can.

We knew the general direction we wanted to head but we quickly found ourselves in a dead end of sorts. I asked a student, "How do I get to the bookstore?" In a delightfully helpful manner that reminded me of why I love living among humans, she walked us a short distance, trying to describe how one might navigate the convoluted, un-named paths that eventually led to the book store. After a few attempts to describe a route that defied description, she finally turned to me and offered this simple advice.

"Just head in this direction," she said, pointing, "and ask people along the way."

I had to laugh. How perfect was that advice? And how broadly applicable.

None of us can make it on our own. Find your general direction – and then ask for help along the way. As it turned out, I didn't even have to find the bookstore to get my daily dose of wisdom.

Purpose or, the Road Home

Purpose is about discovering you and then getting there.

Imagine that you're headed to meet a friend for coffee. En route, you hit a roadblock. The authorities have closed the freeway because of a spill. At that point, you might just call your friend and cancel or reschedule for another time.

Imagine, by contrast, that you encountered this road block on the way home. Likely, you'd look for an alternative route and, even though it took longer than you'd planned; you persevere until you arrived home. It is harder to dissuade us from going home.

Following this analogy, some people find home by following the green lights. This is a strategy that might result in making good time. It is less obviously a strategy that will get you home. In fact, you can try it some day. Some day when you are away from home, drive back. If the green light is an arrow, turn left. If you encounter a green light, go straight. No green light? Turn right. Just keep this up for as long as you had expected to take to get home and see where you get to.

A purpose should feel less like a coffee date, vacation, or trip to work than a trip home. You can be sure to encounter obstacles. At that point, you can give up and start sleeping in the Laundromat, never quite feeling settled or content. Or you can convince yourself that the green lights brought you to exactly the place you should be. Or you can persevere.

Life as an Experiment - Beyond Bold Statements

God said, “Let there be light.”

Fred said, “This is the year that my business moves out of the garage and onto the cover of Inc. magazine.”

Guess who spoke something into existence with a simple declaration and guess who was frustrated, discouraged and embarrassed at the end of the year.

One of the problems with traditional mission statements and goal setting is that it depends on a simplistic notion of how people and reality actually work. The belief that plans will work as planned depends on at least a couple of underlying assumptions, neither of which is particularly well documented. The first assumption is that we are god-like, able to speak things into existence. The second assumption is that reality actually changes in sudden and dramatic shifts, like light springing into existence out of complete darkness.

Perhaps what is most unfortunate about these beliefs is that it so often leads to disappointment and a new belief: “I can’t change. This is just who I am.” Studies show that people who make declarations of self-change temporarily feel better but in just a few weeks nearly 90 percent are disappointed and left with a worse self-image. Worse, declarations that are unrealistic with regards to timing or payoff (the most common kind of declarations) reduce satisfaction with life by about 40 percent. Make a goal and feel worse about yourself and life in general in just weeks!

Declaration is the basis for a lot of change efforts, from diets and fitness programs to business and social success. Whether it is under the guise of mission statements, specific goals or bold promises, declaration is one way we try to assert ourselves onto reality. The result, often as not, makes about as much difference as bugs redirecting traffic.
“Men who have discovered the limits of arrogance make better company: You notice more when you're not running around imposing your will on everything.”
- Virginia Vitzthum
The approach to follow begins with the perhaps shocking notion that we are not god-like. We are unable to change reality – even to change ourselves – with bold declarations or through secretly scribbled notes in a planner or journal.

More often, change is the result of a different process – a more incremental and inquisitive approach in which we learn about our potential and our goals through experiences. Our goals direct our experiences and our experiences, in turn, shape our goals. The two interact in a cycle through which we emerge. The problem is, we too often leave both to chance rather than intention. The approach that follows is about turning your life into an intentional experiment – a wonderful experiment that promises at least as much delight, and certainly more surprise, than the realization of any goal you can declare now.

Life as an Experiment - Buckminster Fuller

In 1927, a 32 year-old man stood on the edge of Lake Michigan, ready to throw himself into the freezing waters. He was bankrupt, the result of his third business failure in a row. He’d been drinking heavily and was grief stricken over the death of his first child. He didn’t know how he would support his wife and newborn daughter. At that moment, his life seemed like a pattern of failures to him. Before the bankruptcies, years earlier, he’d been expelled from Harvard during his freshman year and never did complete his degree.

But fortunately, in this moment of drunken grief, Buckminster Fuller had the presence of mind to make an extraordinary decision. He realized that he was about to throw his life away and decided that if he was contemplating that, why not take half a step back and do something unorthodox. Rather than throw his life away, why not throw away his old notions of goals and achievement? He decided to turn his life into an experiment – an experiment to see how much difference one ordinary person could make. [1]

The difference that Fuller’s life made has yet to be fully understood or felt. He was a pioneer of ecological thinking and sustainability – balancing economic and environmental needs. His influence spreads as a growing number of people adopt the thinking that he helped to introduce. Although he never did complete his degree at Harvard, Fuller was awarded 44 honorary doctoral degrees, granted 25 US patents, and authored 28 books.

When Buckminster Fuller turned his life into an experiment (many called him Bucky, but he referred to himself as Guinea Pig B), he created the conditions for an extraordinary life. Perhaps best of all, his failures were feedback for an experiment, not a reflection of who he was, not something to take personally, not a reason to jump. Turning his life into an experiment gave him the best of both worlds: he ended his life even more accomplished than someone driven to achieve to prove something and remained more sanguine than someone who avoided risks altogether.

The modern world was born when scientists during the Enlightenment began testing hypotheses and conducting experiments rather than blindly quoting Aristotle or church authorities. The modern world – its science, technology, and even social institutions and practices – has emerged from the application of the empirical method to objective reality. Planning, or theorizing, followed by doing, studying the results and then adapting the plan or theory is the cycle of progress.

Consider the possibility that you could apply the empirical method to your personal, subjective reality. It’s possible that you will find similar breakthroughs in your own life if you make your development the product of intentional experiments rather blind adherence to advice from Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins, the motivational thinker de jour or worse, the voice in your head that insists on narrating your life, the voice that we often mistake for reality.

[1] See http://architecture.about.com/library/bl-fuller.htm and http://www.bfi.org/introduction_to_bmf.htm for quick biographies of Richard Buckminster Fuller, 1895 to 1983.

Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Poorly

We have such an emphasis on looking good that it is easy to let that keep us from real progress. It may be no coincidence that babies learn more rapidly than any of us and, as Lyle Lovett reminds us, "fat babies have no pride."

If you are trying a genuinely new task, you are likely to do it poorly. Riding a bike, walking, presenting to a group of bored third graders or hostile clients. If the task is new, you're likely to stumble.

So this is the paradox. The desire to do well stops us from doing what matters. Invariably we will get to a point in life - in our relationships, our work, our health issues - when doing what we do so well no longer matters. We have to try something new. And at that point, we can embrace the fact that we'll do it poorly, freeze, or continue to do the old thing well, desperately hoping that it will suddenly make a difference.

Fame, Fortune, & Tom Waits

I was sitting at the lunch counter of a local institution last week when a guy named Don struck up a conversation with me. From Don I learned that I graduated from the same high school as Don and his buddy, singer / songwriter Tom Waits.

Tom Waits is a musician's musician, a fascinating fellow who I've listened to since my high school days - blissfully unaware that he had wandered the same hallways and skipped the same classes as me, perhaps even had some of the same teachers a decade earlier.

I came home and googled Tom to confirm that he had, indeed, attended Hilltop. He had. But this is the most fascinating bit: the graduate from my high school to go on to the most fame and fortune didn't actually graduate from my high school He dropped out.

As I thought about it, I wondered what any teacher at Hilltop could have taught Tom about his future. He has created a fairly unique sound and although he has some obvious influences he has put them together into rather unobvious songs. As much as any "popular" musician, Tom has defined his own path and his own genre.

We know how to crank out people who fill roles, sure. But what do we know about helping people to find a path in life, to create a life and a life's work that somehow expresses what is unique about them? And of the little we do know, how much of that ever finds its way into school curriculum? Are our institutions destined to waste the time of our creative geniuses?

False Predecessors to Joy

Imagine how different Oprah Winfrey's life would have been if she had had this kind of conversation with herself.

Oprah 1: I feel like I can do so much in television. It's an exciting medium and I think that I have a gift when it comes to communicating to people.
Oprah 2: That's all true, honey, but you need to lose some weight before you get on television.
Oprah 1: I am heavier than most TV personalities.
Oprah 2: "Most?" Honey, the TV camera adds 20 pounds to everyone. You get on there and you'll be heavier than all of them.
Oprah 1: I could start jogging.
Oprah 2: That's a good idea.
Oprah 1: I'll lose 20 pounds and then I'll audition for TV.
Oprah 2: Maybe 25.

Fortunately for Oprah and her fans, her better self didn't give in to the lesser self's insistence that she check the box on a number of false predecessors before she could go live her life’s mission.

I work with project teams at large companies. When we make plans for developing a new product, one of my tasks is to challenge their thinking about predecessors. If you are going to do the laundry, washing is a predecessor to drying. It is the task that comes before. Sometimes predecessors are real; the team really does have to test the new drug on animals before testing on humans. Other times the predecessors are false; you don't have to lose weight before you start working as a TV personality. My work with these teams has helped me to realize how many times I create false predecessors to joy in my daily life.

It is good, useful, and gratifying to have goals. But if you live your life fully, you'll always have another goal before you. If you decide that joy is something to be deferred until you have achieved a goal, you'll find that you're continually deferring joy.

You have only to see a baby laugh to realize that there are very few predecessors to joy. And you have only to be honest about your avoidance of risk to realize that there are likely fewer predecessors to pursuing your goals than you imagine.

Do this exercise. Articulate a goal, something that you want. Don’t just say, “Get a degree.” Articulate why you want the degree, what it will do for you. What do you want the degree for? Now, think about who you would have to be right now in order to make that goal inevitable. Don't think about what you have to do and in what order. Just think about the kind of person who would have accomplished this goal. What kind of confidence, focus, and (yes) joy does this person exude? And ask yourself this: are there really any reasons why you couldn't be that person right now?

Challenge false predecessors to joy and accomplishment. You might be surprised at how many of them exist only in your thinking.

Lazy May Not Be Your Problem

“Sometimes we confuse work ethic with love of what you’re doing.” - Jim Dietz, SDSU Baseball Coach, speaking of Tony Gwynn

When I taught Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People seminars, folks would receive feedback about how well they did in each of the 7 habits. Invariably, people scored lowest on habit 3 - "put first things first." At first blush, this suggested that they weren't driven enough, organized enough - didn't do enough to set and keep priorities. Years later, I don't see it that way.

Habit 1 is “be proactive.” Habit 2 is “begin with the end in mind” - articulating a compelling vision by which to live one's life. Habit 3 is to then “put first things first” - doing the things that support your vision. My own opinion is that breakdowns in habit 3 actually reflect problems with habit 2.

If people have discovered or created a truly compelling vision, putting first things first will not be a problem. If they have a vision that comes from a sense of obligation instead, putting first things first will be a chronic problem. Finding a sense of purpose that resonates is difficult work. If you think that you are not disciplined, you may find that you simply have not created a compelling vision for yourself. Compelling suggests that it is exciting, suggesting a possibility that captivates you. It also suggests that is credible to you - something that you see as possible, perhaps even probable. Once you've truly found yourself, even you may have trouble stopping you.

Goals and MetaGoals

We all have two meta-goals: define a goal and then achieve that goal.

You are sitting around on a Friday night or thinking about a change in your career. Your first step, your first goal, is to define a goal. What do you want to do with your evening? What do you want to do for a career or cash flow?

Once you've defined that goal, your next meta goal is to achieve this newly articulated goal. You call friends to see if they will join you for dinner or begin to call could-be employers to learn whether they have any openings.

My opinion is that we generally spend an inordinate amount of time on pursuing goals and very little time articulating them. Many goals get abandoned either because they weren't practical or they weren't really an expression of who we were.

We shy away from the existential angst that invariably comes with the search to define a goal. it is no wonder that adventure tales so often include the hero struggling against the forces of darkness. It just feels so much better to have a goal - even if it is a petty thing - than to drift without a goal. So, many people short circuit the inevitably frustrating work of finding a goal and leap into pursuing one. Show a little courage: struggle through the darkness rather than avoid it.

“To collect one’s forces, even when they seem to be scattered, and when one’s aim is only dimly perceived -- this is a great action and will sooner or later bring forth fruits.”
- Maria Montessori

Find a goal articulated by a conspiracy of your head, heart, and gut. You won't just find the pursuit of that goal more gratifying - you'll find that realizing such a goal will truly change you.

The Alignment of Head, Heart & Gut

I’ve had four aha moments in my life – four events that brought an alignment of head, heart, and gut. I’ve used those rare moments to guide my life since.

Some conclusions I’ve reached with my head. They make sense even if my heart is not in them. “Don’t treat yourself with so many baked goods” is an example of a conclusion that my head has reached but my heart is not in. To this day I eat too many scones and muffins.

Other conclusions I’ve made with my gut. “Don’t trust that person.” I don’t have a real reason for it – it’s just a gut feeling. Sometimes these gut feelings prove right and other times they don’t. Sometimes my gut feelings seem like intuition and other times they seem to me like they were just superstition.

And some conclusions have been emotional, arrived at by the heart. “I can totally see myself getting rich by signing up 3 new clients each week!” Or, “I am going to get fit by running 5 miles each day!” And as with the decisions made by the head or gut, the decisions made by a heart alone have a mixed track record.

What I’ve found is that there are few times in life when the head, heart, and gut all align, like planets in an astrologer’s forecast. When reason, emotion, and instinct all converge on a decision, it’s a conclusion that I trust with my life. And I have.

The first three moments were both personal and, I’m embarrassed to say it, probably fairly generic. These were moments when reason, emotion, and instinct conspired to tell me that this was a direction to move in my life. My religion, my wife, and my children all hit me with this force. The fourth moment of brilliant clarity, of conviction, has to do with my work, my calling.

About 15 years ago, I saw a pattern that I’ve worked to research, develop, articulate, and translate into action ever since. I am 46 now and I suspect that I’ll merely be getting it started when I stop working at the age of 96. My head tells me that this next great transformation is going to occur and that the pattern of past revolutions predicts the future. My gut tells me that social change is overdue and imminent. My heart tells me that this offers the most exciting opportunity ever afforded a generation and to be an advocate and guide to this transformation promises more excitement than one person has the right to expect. A similar alignment can occur in romance.

When a romantic impulse or insight excites your head, heart, and gut, you have as clear a signal as the universe provides. Honestly do this check for a romantic partner. Does your head, coldly analyzing the facts and situation, feel that this person makes sense as a partner? Do you see reasons why you two wouldn’t be compatible? Does your heart fill with excitement, with emotion, when you are with this person or thinking about him / her? Finally, does your gut send any warning signals or do you feel a great deal of ineffable comfort and sense of belonging with this person? And for a romantic interest you should probably include a fourth organ as well when talking about the alignment of head, heart, and gut.

For a great deal of life, it is enough to have the vote of head, heart, or gut. You don’t need alignment of all three to go try a new restaurant or pick a vacation spot or even move a task up on your to do list. But for the truly defining choices in life, you should patiently wait for just this kind of alignment.

For me, these rare moments of clarity have been enough. If I stay true to them on the dark and confusing days, I can still find my way.