A lot of our training and education is steering us the wrong way.
Our system is designed to help us successfully navigate a world of milestones. You do well in high school and you get into a good college. And that’s good because if you do well in college you get into a good graduate school. And that’s good because if you do well in graduate school you get a good job. And if you do well there you can get promoted which is good because then you get more responsibility (and money) and the chance to prove yourself at an even higher level…
Each time you hit a milestone, you receive valuable feedback: did you do well at the previous task or not. If so, you get a cookie and if not you either have to repeat the task or are ejected from the game.
This works well if your mission in life is to navigate milestones. It works terribly if your mission is to live a rich life. Because the only true milestone where you can receive feedback about your life is just after death. And you can’t do anything with the feedback!
If your mission is one where there are no milestones, you cannot hope to receive useful training from a system that is all about helping you find the next milestone. Instead, you have to find your guidance within. You cannot measure your progress by how many boxes you’ve checked. You cannot expect progress to be linear. You probably should toss aside the concept of progress entirely – it’s been too polluted by your milestone training. True progress will not be measured by some yardstick outside of yourself. It will only be measured by the degree to which your are nourishing and expressing your soul. And, the “score” is tallied only at the end. If you fall down, get up. The clock is still ticking.
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Well said!
Thanks Matt!