“Let all your efforts be directed to something, let it keep that end in view. It’s not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drive them mad.”
SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND, 12.5
You’re probably familiar with the fact that if you set no goals, then you’re 100% guaranteed to achieve what you’re aiming for: nothing. If you don’t have an end goal in mind, then you’re just flitting about aimlessly and without direction, and that is what drives people crazy, as Seneca mentions above in today’s quote from The Daily Stoic.
Lots of activity without keeping the end in view is inefficient, of course. You’ll waste a lot of time and energy on things that keep you feeling busy, but which don’t actually move you any closer to getting what you want. Without that end goal in your sights at all times, then you’ll lose focus and get distracted by the next interesting thing that comes along.
And it’s awfully hard to know when you’ve arrived — when you’ve reached your goal — if you don’t know what it is in the first place! Likewise you won’t clearly see when you’ve fallen off-course or when it’s time to stop if you don’t keep that end in view, always.
Worse, not keeping the end in sight causes a certain kind of anxiety (and eventually insanity), by not having a direction or understanding what your purpose is. All the more reason to spend the time to clearly map out your end goal in advance.
At this point, I feel compelled to offer a counter-balance to all this talk about planning wayyy into the future, all the way to the end. Preparing and planning is great, important stuff. It helps us avoid unwanted surprises, and it’s good to be organized and ready.
But there’s something to be said about not living entirely in the future, and staying focused on the present as well. We should enjoy the present with reverence and justice — and not only be thinking about what’s coming next. Keeping the end in view is indeed important, but not at the expense of living in the moment. After all, you might not have much time left! So enjoy these present moments as they come, too.
