Success Isn’t About Maximizing One Thing.
From R3ciprocity.com - Prof David Maslach: Innovation; Research Life; Striving Towards Happiness · 00:05:23
Show by David Maslach
I don’t think life has one purpose.As a business professor, I’m supposed to love goals.Five-year plans.Optimization.Maximizing wealth.Maximizing productivity.Maximizing happiness.The problem is…I’ve never met anyone whose life actually worked that way.Not the best researchers.Not the best entrepreneurs.Not the happiest people.Life isn’t one goal.It’s twenty goals pulling you in different directions.You want to be a better spouse.A better parent.A healthier person.A better friend.You want meaningful work.Financial security.Time for yourself.You want to help other people.You want adventure.And somehow you’re supposed to optimize all of it.You can’t.Real life is messy.You get injured.Your parents get older.A child needs you.Your research fails.Your marriage changes.Your priorities evolve.Every few years, the person you’re becoming asks different questions than the person you used to be.Innovation taught me something I wish we talked about more.The best ideas rarely come from pursuing one objective with perfect discipline.They emerge from exploration.Experimentation.Serendipity.Allowing yourself to follow curiosity when it doesn’t fit the plan.I think we accidentally teach young people that successful lives are optimized lives.I’m no longer convinced.The happiest people I know aren’t maximizing one thing.They’re constantly making imperfect trade-offs.They’re adjusting.Learning.Failing.Starting over.They’re building a life rather than solving one.Maybe the goal isn’t to optimize your life.Maybe the goal is to become the kind of person who can adapt when life refuses to be optimized.That has become my definition of success.Not perfection.Not maximizing.Just becoming a slightly better human being than I was yesterday.
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