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If only it were that easy. Life goals and dreams are hard because of their innate complexity to achieve them. It's easy to state "I want to start a family" or

If only it were that easy. Life goals and dreams are hard because of their innate complexity to achieve them. It's easy to state "I want to start a family" or "I want to become a business owner" or "I want to climb Everest". It's the execution which is hard because that relies on so many variables most of which you don't really control. Social background, economic background, your health, your personality, your skills and abilities, your awareness of opportunities or lack thereof, ingrained beliefs and biases, education level, culture, current events, family dynamics, upbringing,... The notion that you're in control of what happens in your life is a convenient belief, not a hard fact. It's only when that belief is shattered by hard reality that you start to understand that life doesn't necessarily follow the script you had in mind when you're young. The kicker then is understanding that happiness isn't to be found only when you reach the end of the rainbow, when you finally achieve the dream. It's there along the road, between the rubble and troubles that life throws at you. It's found in what you make out of each day you're given in good health.

vianneychevalie 5y ago
I'm young and that's probably the reason why I'm less cynical. Hurdles can't be a reason not to run the race. For me it's like project management: you're 100% sure that nothing is going to go according to the plan, and that you'll end up far from the target, but still, planning is better than not planning. And adapting the plan along the way is best.
- CaptArmchair 5y ago
  Absolutely! There's value in planning for your life and at least trying to act on your plan. Even so, learning when and how to adapt or abandon your plans, well, that's an art form which takes a lifetime to perfect. Then there are things in life you can't really prepare yourself for because they are, well, life altering. For instance, when you marry, there's only so much you can do to prepare for the probability of losing your partner through death and divorce. The practicalities, such as notary's and testaments, are fairly trivial to deal with. Living through the experience and confronting yourself with reality as it happens? That's a wholly different ball game.
tcgv 5y ago
While I agree that there are a lot of factors we don't control, we can put that into perspective for evaluating how feasible a "life goal" is. There's a culture that pushes us to "dream big" (e.g. build a unicorn startup, become a billionaire). That's usually awfully ambitious, and as feasible as winning the lottery for most of us. We should be pragmatic about our life goals. They should be ambitious, but achieavable. Even if we don't control a lot of factors in our lives we at least have the power to influence them, most of the time it comes in the form of "trade-offs". So you've got to be prepared to make some sacrifices in the present for making progress towards a future goal. I also acknowledge that some of us have a head start due to our social/economical background, and we should be grateful for that.
- veganhouseDJ 5y ago
  I have been listening to the ancients and have become suspect of ambition. It is not like if you see ambition as something less than a moral good you will no longer get anything done. You will just turn off this useless modeling of future events in your head. I suspect in our culture, ambition causes nothing but useless pain and is counter productive at the average as people model their future life up to these highly improbable lottery winning situations. Climbing Mount Everest is really the best metaphor. Massive risk for basically no reward. The whole idea is objectively stupid but seen as some great accomplishment in our culture.
  - WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
    It's a choice. If that makes you happy then follow it. Let's face facts. If our ancestors never had any ambition we would still be hunter-gatherers. We would probably have the same level of happiness and sadness since we would never know anything different. Flowing through life is a choice that works for some.
WastingMyTime89 5y ago
You still have some amount of control. As a 30-something, it has recently become apparent to me that it is very easy to live a life you don't really care about. You start a job because it's the thing people expect you to do with your degree, chase some promotions because it feels nice to improve your status and win more money and without really paying attention you end up doing a job you rescent to keep living a life you dislike.
- jimbob45 5y ago
  > You start a job because it's the thing people expect you to do with your degree I obtained a job so that I could start a family and keep food on the table. I guess what you’re saying would make sense if you already had a retirement-level amount of money to begin with at age 18.
herdcall 5y ago
There's a school of thought among physicists/philosophers called "eternalism" (also goes by "block universe") that posits that all the future is already "laid out," so to speak, and that free will is an illusion. The idea is that the current state of the universe (and mind in our case) dictates the next state (deterministic or stochastic) and we really have to control over the process. Many physicists subscribe to this view (Albert Einstein is supposed to have been a proponent), and I'm increasingly becoming a believer myself. The upshot is that we should never regret/second-guess the past or worry about the future because we really have no control.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  That paints a veneer of effortlessness over everything that I don't much care for. Sure, we could in theory trace back our every impulse to some preceding energy or interaction, but it doesn't much help in the moment when you're trying to push hard to get done that last mile of your run. Even if the universe already knows if you're going to fail or not by the end of the run doesn't mean you do nor should you accept the easy result in the moment.
  - derwiki 5y ago
    The universe knew you were going to think that and push yourself hard for the last mile
- merpnderp 5y ago
  The future has zero mass, thus has zero energy, thus most likely doesn't exist yet. It's a really long gamble to say that it does.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    Can't the same argument be made about the past? The measurement of mass and energy is very much a measure of the present.
- CrazyStat 5y ago
loudtieblahblah 5y ago
You can't control the hand youre dealt. You control how you play the hand And you control at how you take joy in the game.
WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
True, it's not easy. But if you never start and try, I guarantee that it's even more unlikely to happen. It's said that it's the journey not the goal so make the journey fun. If there are ever a set of people that can figure out how to solve a problem, HN has them. So,figure out how to solve your dream problem. True, doing nothing is so much easier but I don't recommend it since you won't like the result.

vianneychevalie 5y ago

I'm young and that's probably the reason why I'm less cynical. Hurdles can't be a reason not to run the race. For me it's like project management: you're 100% sure that nothing is going to go according to the plan, and that you'll end up far from the target, but still, planning is better than not planning. And adapting the plan along the way is best.

CaptArmchair 5y ago
Absolutely! There's value in planning for your life and at least trying to act on your plan. Even so, learning when and how to adapt or abandon your plans, well, that's an art form which takes a lifetime to perfect. Then there are things in life you can't really prepare yourself for because they are, well, life altering. For instance, when you marry, there's only so much you can do to prepare for the probability of losing your partner through death and divorce. The practicalities, such as notary's and testaments, are fairly trivial to deal with. Living through the experience and confronting yourself with reality as it happens? That's a wholly different ball game.

tcgv 5y ago

While I agree that there are a lot of factors we don't control, we can put that into perspective for evaluating how feasible a "life goal" is. There's a culture that pushes us to "dream big" (e.g. build a unicorn startup, become a billionaire). That's usually awfully ambitious, and as feasible as winning the lottery for most of us. We should be pragmatic about our life goals. They should be ambitious, but achieavable. Even if we don't control a lot of factors in our lives we at least have the power to influence them, most of the time it comes in the form of "trade-offs". So you've got to be prepared to make some sacrifices in the present for making progress towards a future goal. I also acknowledge that some of us have a head start due to our social/economical background, and we should be grateful for that.

veganhouseDJ 5y ago
I have been listening to the ancients and have become suspect of ambition. It is not like if you see ambition as something less than a moral good you will no longer get anything done. You will just turn off this useless modeling of future events in your head. I suspect in our culture, ambition causes nothing but useless pain and is counter productive at the average as people model their future life up to these highly improbable lottery winning situations. Climbing Mount Everest is really the best metaphor. Massive risk for basically no reward. The whole idea is objectively stupid but seen as some great accomplishment in our culture.
- WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
  It's a choice. If that makes you happy then follow it. Let's face facts. If our ancestors never had any ambition we would still be hunter-gatherers. We would probably have the same level of happiness and sadness since we would never know anything different. Flowing through life is a choice that works for some.

WastingMyTime89 5y ago

You still have some amount of control. As a 30-something, it has recently become apparent to me that it is very easy to live a life you don't really care about. You start a job because it's the thing people expect you to do with your degree, chase some promotions because it feels nice to improve your status and win more money and without really paying attention you end up doing a job you rescent to keep living a life you dislike.

jimbob45 5y ago
> You start a job because it's the thing people expect you to do with your degree I obtained a job so that I could start a family and keep food on the table. I guess what you’re saying would make sense if you already had a retirement-level amount of money to begin with at age 18.

herdcall 5y ago

There's a school of thought among physicists/philosophers called "eternalism" (also goes by "block universe") that posits that all the future is already "laid out," so to speak, and that free will is an illusion. The idea is that the current state of the universe (and mind in our case) dictates the next state (deterministic or stochastic) and we really have to control over the process. Many physicists subscribe to this view (Albert Einstein is supposed to have been a proponent), and I'm increasingly becoming a believer myself. The upshot is that we should never regret/second-guess the past or worry about the future because we really have no control.

SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
That paints a veneer of effortlessness over everything that I don't much care for. Sure, we could in theory trace back our every impulse to some preceding energy or interaction, but it doesn't much help in the moment when you're trying to push hard to get done that last mile of your run. Even if the universe already knows if you're going to fail or not by the end of the run doesn't mean you do nor should you accept the easy result in the moment.
- derwiki 5y ago
  The universe knew you were going to think that and push yourself hard for the last mile
merpnderp 5y ago
The future has zero mass, thus has zero energy, thus most likely doesn't exist yet. It's a really long gamble to say that it does.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  Can't the same argument be made about the past? The measurement of mass and energy is very much a measure of the present.
CrazyStat 5y ago

loudtieblahblah 5y ago

You can't control the hand youre dealt. You control how you play the hand And you control at how you take joy in the game.

WheelsAtLarge 5y ago

True, it's not easy. But if you never start and try, I guarantee that it's even more unlikely to happen. It's said that it's the journey not the goal so make the journey fun. If there are ever a set of people that can figure out how to solve a problem, HN has them. So,figure out how to solve your dream problem. True, doing nothing is so much easier but I don't recommend it since you won't like the result.