crush-n-spread:
> I submit that the working person greatly benefits from having a strongly held, over-arching life goal.
I believe having a strong over-arching goal is very helpful for a person (working or otherwise). Helpful in the sense that it can offset certain problems or give the person better tools for working around/through them (i.e., depression, burnout, purposelessness, general decision making).
I don't think this is the same thing as ambition or obsession, although many people do turn that into their drive and I think that's fairly dangerous (the thing one is obsessed about may not work out).
I wouldn't really agree that most people are "fine" in some general sense, nor do most people typically subsist without any kind of life goal (religion is popular).
I would say that 'purpose' would fit better into your argument than 'goal'. Taking care of children or elderly parent gives you a purpose but is not a goal. And yes, I agree that having a purpose makes the tough parts of life more bearable.
The word "purpose" would fit what I'm talking about, but not really the way it seems to be commonly used.
I distinguish these things by their target of focus:
A "purpose" is concerned with one's place in the world. It's an attempt to fit in. It is also often done in a manner similar to picking your favorite color. "I want to be a star athlete".
A high-level "purpose"/"goal"/etc. is concerned with the state of the world. It's often not too concerned with where you are, it's rather concerned with results, and it can be good or bad, and it needs justification. "I want the game of soccer to be beautiful".
The latter is considerably more resilient than the former, as it is not reliant on personal performance as much, and the latter can guide the former. You might even ask whether the game of soccer needs more athletes to be beautiful, or if you did become one, you'd have a much easier time rejecting things like cheating and doping if you think they do not help, while someone concerned with being a star athlete is very inclined to cheat since that is their purpose and they don't have an overarching goal to stop them. And, in the end, if they nonetheless fail to become a star athlete, they'd have quite the crisis, while the person with the goal will be OK with it as the game of soccer will likely stay beautiful without them, and, even, consider if athletes are not really the biggest threat to soccer right now given their sheer number.
The problem I see with this approach is that, unless you're a billionaire (maybe a multimillionaire), you're not going to affect the world in any measurable way (barring super-rare exceptions like some writers, politicians, scientists etc.). Granted, you could make your life's purpose to for example improve pot holes situation in your county - in such case, even when being an average nobody you can make the situation better (by constantly harassing the authorities etc.). I don't know how many people can be driven by such small-stake goal though.
> The problem I see with this approach is that, unless you're a billionaire (maybe a multimillionaire), you're not going to affect the world in any measurable way (barring super-rare exceptions like some writers, politicians, scientists etc.).
I think this belief comes from highly individualist cultures where you need to do everything yourself, but it's not the only way of doing things. People tend to just focus on themselves, improving themselves, figuring out how they personally can do something, but there's not much focus on involving other people.
On the contrary, "doers" often close up, stop talking to people, stop making friends, etc., in their effort to "do" the thing, which, if anything, makes their network angry at them. Often this /does/ happen because doers think less of everyone else, creating the very kind of pressure that pushes people away.
How do movements start, even silly ones? We've seen plenty of those. They don't really require someone to do some insane amount of work. But they require people to talk about it and to then bear the brunt of ostracism. Plenty of movements, including many people don't like at all, have grown this way. Simply from some people saying "you know, this makes no sense" and other people agreeing.
A lot of things come down to what regular people talk about every day and connecting to them. Even billionaires and writers, in the end, are trying to change the thinking of regular people.
