Rather than a decent goal

I’ve rarely had a clear goal in life. Most of the things in my life that I’ve been truly engrossed in have been things that fit me pretty well, seemed fun or interesting, or were the type of things I could do well. I’ve rarely worked hard to accomplish something on a personal or public level. The things that I have tried to accomplish have been things that I felt like I should do because everyone else was doing it, or something that someone else made me do.

I’ve gotten what I wanted if I worked hard enough, but I didn’t put in the extra effort to get it. In an independent press edition, I would have hoped that people would care more and that people in power would make better decisions. I was still writing about the movies I wanted to write about, or about alcohol, out of sight, out of mind. I never thought about climbing higher or achieving something big in the organizations I worked for, big or small. I didn’t get along well with people who just gave me those goals and expected me to do something.

With this background and mindset, it’s a bit strange to work at an IT startup. The startup scene is driven by a lot of desire, and some people here have goals like to make 100 billion, to change the world, and I have none of that.

I once told a friend in the same industry that I was too greedy to be in a startup. I’m not too greedy to be in a startup. I was like, “You have to have a goal to be here, right? My friend said, “How many people are going to make 100 billion if they don’t go broke? Thank goodness - he listened to me ramble on about the same thing. It’s kind of funny now that I think about it.

I’m not good at setting goals. I’m more stressed when I create goals that give my life irreplaceable meaning. I’m not going to get into the details, because it’s embarrassing, but I hate the idea of my life, my work, my life contributing to a goal. It’s always good to be free from a grand calling, a manifesto. I feel like even the goals I set are some kind of giant manifesto. Trying to control my life to contribute to something has always been a failure.

It’s more of a fun thing that drives me to do what I want to do. Even in my work life, if the mission of the company is fun and the work is fun, I enjoy coming and going. If it’s something that can bring good value to a lot of people, that’s even better. Growth has never been my goal since I realized that development could pay the bills. The fun of engineering is what kept me going. It’s about planning to do fun things better, and having fun along the way.

From my experience so far, it seems that life is meaningful even if it’s just for me. There’s fun in doing things that are fun, but there’s also fun in doing things that are meaningful. When you do something for fun, you move the lightest and fastest. So I can and want to accomplish something through something fun.

I think that’s how I’ll continue to live. As for being happy, that’s another matter, but I’ve realized that in my life, happiness is in the process of continuing to find and add fun things to my life. Lately, I’ve been trying to change my life by finding new fun things. I guess I haven’t tried to change my life to find new fun things. I need to start exploring and making new choices again.

As I’m writing this, I realize that it’s kind of a rambling post… and I’m wondering why I took the time to write it, but I’m really thinking about it.