Aim past your target
A friend of mine who I haven’t seen in quite a while was in town for the week. Catching up with him was great, especially since he almost died over the summer. The news of his near-death experience made the time spent with him seem more valuable. As a healthy, strong and active man in his mid-forties; his brush with death came as a shock to his friends. Yet, not to him. In fact, he knew it was a possibility because he has a genetic pre-disposition to heart failure. He has come to terms with with his condition. In fact, it has made him live with a different perspective than most.
Most goal oriented people tend to aim for their goals and ignore the process. They get such tunnel vision that the march toward their final destination without enjoying the path along the way. Then, as their goal approaches, they are rewarded with a shot of dopamine (a neurotransmitter that gives you a dose of happiness just before you are going to get a reward). Then, that’s it. There is really nothing beyond that. Many people actually become depressed after they reach a goal because they thought there would be more fulfillment.
My friend knows that he can die at any moment, so he can’t live for the goals. He has to live for the process. Counterintuitively, this attitude has led him to a tremendous amount of success. He looks at his goals like targets, and knows that the most successful shooters don’t aim at the target. Instead, they aim at an imaginary point beyond the target. He lives his life to keep going. The goals are simply milestones on his journey. But, it’s the journey that is the focus. When he is working, he is focused on the task at hand. When he is mountain biking, he is focused on the task at hand. When he is doing Jiu Jitsu, he is focused on the task at hand. The only goal he has is to shoot beyond his goals so that he always has something else to shoot for. Knowing that he could die any day has given him meaning in the tasks of each day.
This perspective can teach us how to live differently. The realization that life is made up of the time we spend each day actually doing life can lead us to finding meaning, success, and joy. Remember, there is a date that you are born, a date that you die and a dash between those two dates. All three will eventually be written in stone. So, while you are here, focus on the dash.