Self
In Defense of “Meaningless” Goals
The value of living free of metrics and pursuing things for the sake of it.
Dad and I were driving to the gym and talking about how to solve the world’s problems as usual. He’s an opinionated man with a strong personality, which is unsurprising given his past. He spent 37 years as a Navy SEAL, and traveled to nearly 100 countries in diplomatic roles and saw the world’s many messes. We pivoted into aging and fitness, which is increasingly relevant as I march through my early 40s.
He looked off in thought and casually said, “I wonder if I could get through Hell Week now.” I looked at him and wondered, not for the first time, if he might be crazy. He was grey haired and deep into his 60s, with both hips replaced. Meanwhile, Hell Week includes 5.5 days of constant exercise, shouting, gunfire, cold water, and less than 4 hours of total sleep. The most athletic men in the country are weeded out at this bottleneck. And perhaps this is the difference between people like us and people like him. We do things because we have to. They do things to see if they can.
Grand and voluntary acts, with no objective utility or dollar value can seem so unproductive in this hyper-competitive, KPI-infused corporate world, where everything is drawn out and measured in varying…
