The following article was originally published on Roosh V.
Upon setting a goal, you fantasize about the pleasure you’ll receive from accomplishing it. The problem is that only a tiny percentage of your overall time is spent enjoying the actual goal. Instead, most of your efforts go into the tasks towards achieving it. The work you do for the goal becomes your life, not the goal itself.
Let’s say a man wants to get into game because he wants sex. He’s a night person so he decides to meet girls at bars. He imagines all the drunk sluts he will sleep with. Even if his game is good, most of his time will be spent at the bars drinking alcohol while a tiny percentage will be spent in actual fornication. His life is not one of sex, but of going to bars.
An obese career woman sits all day at work and binges on junk food at night. She is starting to have back and knee pain. She imagines being thin, more beautiful, and free of pain, so she goes vegan and signs up for Crossfit. Her life now becomes that of veganism and Crossfit, which will dominate her free time. Even when she hits her health goal, she will spend that renewed health to continue being a vegan while doing Crossfit instead of just being healthy in isolation.
Fame works the same way. You work so hard to achieve a goal of receiving adoration from the masses, but your lifestyle becomes one of self-promotion and using Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. You’re forced to spend hours a day referring to yourself in a positive manner instead of receiving the love that you imagined.
Whatever you do to achieve a goal becomes your lifestyle. The goal is the dessert, the 1% reward from your efforts, but there is the 99% that you must continually do to maintain the goal. Are you ready to labor and obsess over trivial activities so that you can reach your “dreams”? Because that’s the price you must pay when you set goals. You’re trained in the West to believe that things are “worth it in the end,” but most of the time it’s not. The goal is a way to keep you busy and distracted.
As I mentioned before, the best goal is one where you enjoy the entire process. Merely craving the end goal will not be enough. A lot of men want to get laid with beautiful women, but they can’t maintain continuous effort of hunting for them on the streets or bars. A lot of men want big muscles, but they can’t maintain a continuous program of working out in the gym or watching their diet. If these men set goals around sex or muscles, they will fail. I have a goal to finish books, and since I like the process of writing, my goal is an inevitable conclusion of what I like doing, which means I’m likely to succeed.
A man with multiple goals is stretched too thin, because all of his energy and willpower is being used to maintain multiple lifestyles. He thinks the more goals the better, because then he will reach his potential and enjoy the fruits of life, but those fruits are such a tiny percentage of his overall goal work that he’s slowly burning himself out doing things he doesn’t feel passionate about. Set a goal, but understand what lifestyle you’ll be forced to inherit while you try to achieve it.
Read Next: “When The Shoe Fits” By Osho Is A Deep Introduction To Tao
“The problem is that only a tiny percentage of your overall time is spent enjoying the actual goal.”
I can’t entirely agree, I wanted to retire as early as possible.
Took me until age 45 (22 years working) to achieve my goal.
Have been enjoying ‘not working’ for 17 years so far.
So hardly 1% reward for my efforts.
The trick is, not to set yourself trivial goals, but truly life-enhancing goals.
Good point Roosh. I’ve also observed this phenomena. 10 years ago, I began to travel the world, and now I’ve been to 50+ countries, having lived in about half a dozen for more than 6 months.
The goal of travelling and exploring to me used to be a priority, and I inherited a whole lifestyle with that. I understood it made it difficult to secure an LTR, and many, many women I crossed paths with, also knew that. You can fuck, you can have an STR, but then you leave them. Sometimes you fall in love with a few of them. But there is a price to pay for every lifestyle you inherit, and the price I paid in the past 10 years has been to not have any LTRs that were longer than 6 months.
But I came to accept that, because I put my own goals first. Most of my friends were cocooned in LTRs and comfort bubbles, living the stable life, while I was exploring, experimenting and sampling the world in uncertainty and constant flux. The life experience gained was like reading 1000 books or more. Its very important to have ambitions, as this is what builds a man. Comfort rarely does. But there is a time for comfort and settling down too. I’d rather do it later than earlier.
You think marrying some feminist cunt from Toronto or LA will be until eternity? I envy you for travelling overseas and fucking feminine women.
Sounds like someone is really trying to convince themselves
Most sensible article on success I have read in awhile. Me n need to take this to heart. And do it.
The sun warms and provides light to the side of the planet facing it. Magnify those rays into a tiny space and a fire is started.
The mind works the same way.
Good article.
“Magnify those rays into a tiny space and a fire is started.”
I misspoke. It should read, “Focus those rays into a tiny space and a fire is started.”
Fixed it for you.
Enjoy Labor Day.
See you all next week.
test
You’ve tested positive for HIV/AIDS.
I am very ambitious, and my goals have been international for the better part of the last 10 years. Which means lots of travelling and roaming about, with periods of stability in between. Been to 50 + countries and met so many people, heard so many stories, had so many experiences, while I was doing my thing. When your goals are not limited to location, the lifestyle you inherit has its costs too. For one, it has made getting an LTR much more difficult, as most of the many, many women I have crossed paths with that are LTR material sense my free spirit as a threat to “settling down”. On the upside, the amount of experience gained with this lifestyle has enriched my life so much, that it has overwhelmed the downsides so far. As long as every man is able to rationally weigh up the pros and cons of a lifestyle, he should proceed to embrace it.
Most of my friends are in LTRs and comfort bubbles, while I went rogue to follow my dreams around the globe. But I would rather have done this than settle down very early on, because you will truly appreciate comfort and stability when it does come, after you have given it up, and not taken it for granted all along.
I have come full circle and currently believe that the “nomadic lifestyle” of traveling and working in many different countries is actually an excellent excuse NOT to have a LTR. For example, over the course of a year, I would much rather have 2-3 STRs in different countries than 1 LTR, but you can’t actually tell the women you’re with this strategy for obvious reasons. But being a nomad takes the pressure and the onus OFF of you — you become non-accountable for your inability to have a LTR because you “must” travel for work or to find that next contract… doesn’t matter if you’re actually making your $$$ over the internet. In essence, you have a perfect justification for ending stale or onerous relationships and moving on to something “better.”
It is indeed a very legitimate excuse not to have an LTR, and the route of having multiple STRs is just a natural corollary of such a lifestyle. In fact, its the most optimum route. You also learn how to control your attachment and emotions better, which is gold when it comes to dealing with women as you want her to fall in love with you FIRST.
Back when I was 21, I got a bad case of One-itis. It was an STR, and the feelings were mutual on both sides. It was the most intense feelings I’ve ever had for a woman since. I actually came to believe she was my soul mate. I left her and went to another country, she was heart broken. I played cool even though I was pining hard for her. She, being a typical high commodity woman, knew an LDR was pointless and moved on. Me, being a naive fucking fool, wanted to come back to see her and continue the relationship. Well, I came back to find out she was fucking some other guy. That was the moment that I swore to never be such a fool again.
Hence, STRs coupled with emotional realism are the best route for the travelling man who wants a balance between sex and relationship. But it inevitably requires us to be ahem…a bit sneaky with women. You obviously don’t want to tell her you are leaving soon, it has to always be a “sudden thing”. Besides, I know how quickly most women move on anyway. They may cry their eyes out and have a catharsis, but believe me, they will be on the move much sooner than you expect. This is what most men don’t understand because its us who are the real hopeless romantics, not women.
Nowadays, I have built up a pool of women across various countries that I can tap, according to who is available and willing, when I’m in town. Spinning plates is now standard procedure, simply because desirable women do this much more than they like to admit, so its a safe bet for men to do the same.
My goal is to join the royal navy. I have been jogging twice week and learning to swim
Don’t be a fool. They would try to send you to fight in foreign for HM the Queen. Yet, if you come back crippled from the from due to a war wound, the state will not give a shit about in the UK.
Exercise is fine but there is no need to join the Royal Navy.
I don’t like my hobbies very much (just the results); studying helping professions, learning languages, natural bodybuilding etc. I tend to dread my workouts and having to go to class. Often I gaze at the clock and hope for the class to end soon. I dabble in distance work related to those fields. Have faced a lot of discrimination as well because of my openness about my own issues, personality and possibly gender as well as a lot of the circles I’ve tried to break into have been dominated by hags or hags in the making.
I have learned a fair bit and improved a lot. Have not had any friends during my adult life, never had a fling or a girlfriend either. I go clubbing quite often. Never drink alcohol when clubbing.
Recently when I went to a cafeteria to attend a recruitment event organized by a third sector society I had a slight feeling of waking up from a dream that lasted many many years. The feeling passed but what stuck with me was the feeling of me being in an emotional stupor and breaking out. Maybe the stupor is what I am but I do believe that my lack of social life is constantly keeping me in a state of distortion.
I feel like a pretty decent, ‘interesting’ guy but obviously not a very content one. It’s very important for us to recognize the difference between feeling bad and being bad. Sometimes we feel bad because we’ve let ourselves go and are not going anywhere and are even toxic to be around. I may feel bad still but I don’t think it’s because I’m ‘bad’ despite all the blind spots I may have.
I try to do something different every year. It’s usually a minor thing but it all adds up I guess.
You should ask Roosh for a nice back massage. Don’t worry, he’s not gay—just miserable, like everyone else here.
Good article
this is something a lot of millineal men didn’t get taught growing up
Female conditioning and materialistic culture
MAAAAAAANN
YALL NIGGAS BE POPPIN THAT REAL SHIT THESE DAYS! THIS ARTICLE WOKE
MY GOAL IS TO BANG EVERY HOT WHITE WOMAN POSSIBLE
I HAVE BEEN TRAINING ON SHORTER ONES, BEATIN UP THAT PUSSY OF 5’0 and 5’2 WHITE CHICKS
I’M FINNA GRADUATE TO 8s and 9s SOON SON
FUCK YEAH!
Dindu
C o o n.
AN obese career woman haha I would’ve said hamm beast but that was still funny
Buddhists say the path to enlightenment is giving up your illusions. The illusion is the dream of what you want, desire, the constant struggle to fulfill a desire that is inherently fantasy breeds suffering. Therefore to elimination suffering you must accept things as they are. The is not to say things can change or improve but there must be a tone of reality in it or your will be perpetually discontent or a slave to your illusions.