Goals in due time.
In our modern age, It has become fashionable to follow a rigid pathway of increased performance and productivity in a workplace or to work towards a goal to the sacrifice of everything else. One can speculate that this promoted trend has to do with the COVID-19 Pandemic and its consequences on the job market, that being the increased competitive nature of a job market and finding a job in an international economy while it is under major stress. With that being said, this idea of continual hustle and grind is not a new concept and we can take a look at old concepts as a source for these new age ideas that have manifested themselves in self help videos and articles online.
Some years ago, I read a book called “The Time Paradox” by Philip Zimbardo; essentially, this book could be boiled down to the following central tenants. 1. There are three main time perspectives. These perspectives that exist are the past focus, the present focus and the future focus. The differences between these three perspectives are that a person focuses on either their past, present or future and depending on which course of action they take, it will heavily impact their life and corresponding success. This is because, the past focuser is reminiscing or complaining about what has happened before, and thus this holds them back from continual self improvement. In contrast, the present focuser is attempting to deal with life with the primary issue being what is directly in front of them. According to Zimbardo, these individuals may have some limited success, but because they are so caught up in the here and now, they are limited in which ways they can expand and grow and so, in the long term they will have limited success. The future thinker is thus put on a pedestal and showered with praise for that they don’t worry about the past and instead just keep grinding towards their goals and keep moving in a forward direction. While, grinding forward towards specific goals is all well and good; today, I would like to address how the unconventional individual, that is someone who wants to take a different path than the perpetual grinder, may be on a wise path.
In history, there were individuals who were highly skilled in many topics and made great names for themselves. Such individuals were noted in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and include individuals such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Goethe. The term for these people is called “Polymath”. For those unaware of the words origin, it comes from Greek language roots meaning someone who has high expertise in multiple fields of study.
Many people, assume that if they set a linear pathway of goals and objectives that they must hit these in order to progress; however, I would argue that this is not the only way forward and that divergent pathways can be very positive and even complimentary for pursuing long term goals. A pertinent example is that of NASA Space Program. Many inventions such as space water filtration, improved solar cells and imaging systems now used in cellphones have come about from the spending into the Federal Space programs for the purpose of examining the conditions of space and of landing people on the moon in the 20th century. Such investment has led to many new ideas and progressions on problems in the world despite not seeming applicable in the here and now.
The Corollary of having an open mind while working on different goals is a central point of the many notable books like that of Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstader and the Art of Programming by Donald Knuth. They emphasis that different approaches to problems is vital. Why is an open mind necessary, you may ask? I think it is essential for people to understand that a day of thinking about an issue and one hour of actual execution may very well be much better than doing 8 hours of continual work down the wrong path. For where would Classical Physics be if it wasn’t for Isaac Newton sitting under a tree?
In Conclusion, individuals will have to decide for themselves the best use of their time; however, I suspect that if individuals take the time to explore different pathways out there for their goals, then they will be happier in the endgame.