For many, the words goal setting trigger not motivation but anxiety. The term evokes images of relentless discipline, rigid schedules, unrealistic expectations, and a life in which spontaneity quietly disappears. Perhaps the most poetic sarcasm I have ever heard captures this irony beautifully: “The whole purpose of my life is to find the purpose of my life.”
Many motivators speak of a purpose-driven life, of discovering one’s why as the ultimate source of meaning. This inevitably leads to a deeper philosophical question: does life itself have an inherent purpose?
Beyond human beings, no other species appears to wrestle with this question. Animals do not search for meaning; they simply live. This distinction is precisely what sets humans apart. As Homo sapiens evolved a more developed prefrontal cortex, we gained self-awareness, foresight, and moral reasoning. This cognitive leap allowed us to think beyond the present moment, regulate instincts, plan for the future, and reflect on our own existence.
While this development made civilization, ethics, culture, and creativity possible, it also introduced existential anxiety and the relentless search for meaning. In essence, it transformed humans from instinct driven organisms into conscious participants in life, capable of freedom, responsibility, and self-reflection.
In religious language, this awakening is symbolized by Adam and Eve, the first beings to attain moral awareness. This interpretation is notably explored by Paramahansa Yogananda in Autobiography of a Yogi, where the symbols of Eden are understood as inner states of consciousness. From a metaphysical perspective, their story can be read as an allegory for the fall of human consciousness: a transition from a unified, instinctive, blissful state shared by all other living species into a world of duality, self-reflection, and existential burden.
The Garden represents pre-reflective consciousness, where humanity existed in immediate unity with nature, free from the weight of moral choice, time consciousness, and awareness of death. Eating apple from the Tree of Knowledge marks the emergence of self-consciousness, the moment we became aware of ourselves as separate from the world. This awakening brought profound gifts: moral discernment, abstract reasoning, and the capacity for meaning making. Yet it also carried an irreversible cost: the loss of innocent immediacy, the arising of shame and existential anxiety, and the haunting awareness of mortality.
In this view, the expulsion from Eden is the inevitable consequence of consciousness itself. Once awakened, we can never return to unconscious unity until we die. Spiritual energy becomes increasingly entangled with the senses and material existence, and we are left to navigate the paradox of freedom, condemned to create meaning in a world we can no longer simply inhabit.
Purpose can be understood from both spiritual and materialist perspectives. From a spiritual lens, we are not born merely to exist, we are born to explore, to experience, to express, and to seek fulfillment. From a materialist perspective, however, purpose is not fixed; it is a moving target shaped by circumstance, survival, desire, and change. Perhaps herein lies the paradox of being human.
In this paradoxical space, one might imagine Friedrich Nietzsche and Rumi sitting together in dialogue:
Rumi says, “Lose yourself, and you find everything.” Nietzsche responds, “Assert yourself, and you create everything worth finding.”
Rumi: “The mystic transcends through union with the Beloved by dissolving the illusion of separateness.” Nietzsche: “The philosopher transcends through the fire of his own creative power by forging meaning from the void.”
Rumi: “Come, come, whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper, lover of truth. Ours is not a caravan of despair.” Nietzsche: “Go, go, become who you are, creator, destroyer, shaper of your own destiny. Do not seek, but make yourself worthy of being sought.”
Here, the human journey of purpose becomes a dance between surrender and assertion, between discovering meaning beyond oneself and creating it within oneself. It is the eternal paradox of being: the choice between the life of a monk, where desires are subdued, and the life of one who shapes their own destiny, often through struggle, pain, and suffering.
Goal setting, then, does not mean living a rigid life. It is about having direction without losing flexibility, staying grounded in core objectives while allowing for adjustments along the way. Without such structure, life becomes like a feather in the wind, constantly drifting, lifted and dropped by circumstance. A thoughtful goal-setting system keeps you moving deliberately toward the life you wish to live.
As the saying goes: “A ship without a rudder may catch the wind, but it will never reach a chosen shore.”
Having reflected on the human quest for purpose and the paradox of freedom, the next article will explore how to build a simple yet powerful goal-setting system that supports meaning as defined by your own perception while also enabling a highly productive life aligned with it.
faznotes.com 
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