The reason why we see so many rat racers around is that our culture reinforces this belief. If we get an A at the end of the semester, we get a gift from our parents; if we meet certain quotas on the job, we get a bonus at the end of the year. We learn to focus on the next goal rather than on our present experience and chase the ever-elusive future our entire lives. We are not rewarded for enjoying the journey itself but for the successful completion of a journey. Society rewards results, not processes; arrivals, not journeys.

Once we arrive at our destination, once we attain our goal, we mistake the relief that we feel for happiness. The weightier the burden we carried on our journey, the more powerful and pleasant is our experience of relief. When we mistake these moments of relief for happiness, we reinforce the illusion that simply reaching goals will make us happy. While there certainly is value in relief—it is a pleasant experience and it is real—it should not be mistaken for happiness.

Excerpt from Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar.

Photo credit: James Clar.

Finally, graduation is upon us. In last three years we have slaved away and worked relentlessly to achieve one key goal: to graduate. But now that University is over, a whole new world opens up. How are we to direct our lives from here on; especially after spending 17+ years in an education system, which to a certain extent did the directing for us?

As we enter the ‘real world’, we are invited, or rather, are required to consider the bigger picture and direct our own lives. The best way of doing this is by setting our own goals and working towards new aspirations. Goals will continue to be particularly important in this journey because:

Ample evidence links goals to well-being. Goals can provide structure, meaning, identity, and a sense of purpose, and progress towards goals results in positive affective states such as hope, enthusiasm, and pride.

(Segerstrom and Nes, 2006)

In other words, goals are good for our psychological health. But what kind of goals should we pursue after graduation? Ideally the ones that lead to the highest level of life satisfaction and subjective well-being. Many desire money, material wealth, image, and fame, but there is a ‘dark side to the American dream’, as Kasser and Ryan (1993) found. In a study where they interviewed college students, they concluded:

When goals for financial success exceed those for affiliation, self-acceptance, and community feeling, worse psychological adjustment was found.

(Kasser and Ryan, 1993)

Therefore personal growth, close relationships and community involvement should not be ignored as we venture out into the real world. Such aspirations, labeled by Kasser and Ryan (1996) as intrinsic goals, help satisfy our basic psychological needs, which are:

Autonomy

a sense of choice and free will




Competence

effective interaction with the environment




Relatedness

connecting with others and being cared about




(Niemic, Ryan, and Deci, 2009)

Extrinsic goals such as money and fame are not as conducive to these needs and so we must be cautious, for the single-minded pursuit of extrinsic aspirations could lead to a very unsatisfactory life.

Not to say that pursuing money is totally unhealthy. If you want to be rich, just make sure that it is for the ‘right’ reasons i.e. the money facilitates an increase in autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The wrong reason would be an attempt to use the money to show off, or to garner some form of external validation about yourself.

I guess this essay applies to me more than anyone else. In fact, I wrote it firstly for me because I have a big financial goal. After doing some reading and reflection, I have adjusted my goals accordingly.

Fellow graduates, as we set out to begin our adult lives, let us make sure that if we are to pursue anything in life, that it leads to an increased sense of free will (autonomy), personal growth (competence), community involvement and good relationships (relatedness).

References:

Kasser, Tim, and Richard M. Ryan. “A Dark Side of the American Dream: Correlates of Financial Success as a Central Life Aspiration.” Journal of Personality and Social Pyschology (1993) 65, no. 2: 410-422.

Kasser, Tim, and Richard M. Ryan. “Further Examining the American Dream: Differential Correlates of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goals.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 22, no. 3 (1996): 280-287.

Niemiec, Christopher P., Richard M. Ryan, and Edward L. Deci. “The Path Taken: Consequences of Attaining Intrinsic and Extrinsic Aspirations in Post-college Life.” Journal of Research in Personality 43, no. 3 (2009): 291-306.

Segerstrom, Suzanne C., and Lise Solberg Nes. “When Goals Conflict But People Prosper: The Case of Dispositional Optimism.” Journal of Research in Personality 40, no. 5 (2006): 675-693.

The first time I heard ‘Bright Life‘ (a song by Rie Fu), the following line resonated with me so much, I had to blog it:

Try not to think about getting credit for doing what you were born to do.

Why? Because the need to bask in glory and praise can get in the way of doing authentic work.