The Positive Outcome

There is one unifying goal in all of life: the positive outcome.  Everyone is looking for that one meaning in life that makes them feel fulfilled: service to others, love, happiness, pleasure, achievement, learning, personal growth, financial success, respect, or appreciation.  The truth is that it is all growth-related, as everyone looks forward to doing things in life that make them better off in some way.  Growth is defined in this case as transitioning from a current state to an improved future state.  Any result that is an improvement from the current state is positive, so the aim is for a positive outcome.

Hence, the object of all decisions and actions is the positive outcome.  The truth is that all people are trying to attain positive outcomes for themselves and the people that they care about.  Similarly, they are trying to avoid negative outcomes and, if there is an adversary that (they believe) is trying to inhibit their attainment of a positive outcome, shift that negative outcome onto him or her.  So if life is this easy and obvious to understand, where do the difficulties lie?  Well, there are several situations where people cannot simply seek the positive outcome that they want the most in life:

• They Don’t Know What They Want – The world is amazing in that there is a near-infinite number of things that you can do.  However, it’s also overwhelming.  Hence, people can become paralyzed from the uncertainty of not knowing what they want.  The only solution to uncertainty is to expose yourself to various experiences that educate you more on what you want so that you can become more certain.  Watch people do what you think you’d like to do; look at successful people and whether that success would make you happy (and why); try something you think you might like and see if you enjoy it.  When you see positive outcomes you like, you’ll have solved this problem.
• They Don’t Think It Is Attainable – When you do know what you want, the biggest hurdle becomes believing that you can attain it.  People who play the lottery, for example, don’t believe that they can make a lot of money via other means.  People who quit trying to attain a goal believe that it’s unattainable or requires too much work or sacrifice for it to be with it (see: most new year’s resolutions).  To overcome this challenge, there are only two things you can do: bring the outcome closer to you (i.e., reduce your goal or identify attainable milestones), or bring yourself closer to the outcome (e.g., take a first step, make yourself more qualified, learn more about paths that are easier to take).  If you can align your desired outcome with your belief in your ability to attain it, you’ll be driven to action.
• Uncontrollable Factors Are Involved – Back at that lottery example, winning is random.  There are a lot of random factors that come into play: injury, setbacks, weather and natural disasters, etc.  If people think that success is more a matter of chance/luck than it is their ability, they are less likely to try (unless, like the lottery, the positive outcome is so huge that trying seems worth it).  The best way to find a path forward when randomness is a factor is to see which paths are more under your control and to see whether you can mitigate the risk and impact of uncontrollable factors.  Insurance is the best example of “controlling the uncontrollable” (i.e., accounting for it); getting a degree in journalism while playing college football is a good example of a way to reduce the consequences of injury detailing your journey of having a prominent role in sports.
• What They Want Is Different from What Others Want – Social desirability drives a lot of what people end up doing.  For example, you don’t see a lot of people wearing Halloween costumes on a Tuesday in June when going out with their friends to a restaurant.  Embarrassment and shame are big influencing factors.  If you want something but find yourself shying away from it because of what others might think, then you should try either keeping the activity to yourself, finding a group that also likes that thing (e.g., social club, online forum), only share it with people who won’t judge you, or practice not caring what others think.  If you have one burning desire but let this stop you, then you might never feel fulfilled in life.
• There Might Be a Situation with Limited Options or a Win-Lose Model – Competition can bring out the best in people, which is why it is so effective of a social mechanism for success (e.g., sports, business).  However, it does create the winner-loser dynamic and either shies people away from participating or makes it seem like you have to succeed at someone else’s expense.  There are several ways to address this one.  First, not everything has to be a win-lose competition.  Businesses exist because both parties—the service provider and the consumer—are better off as a result.  If they weren’t, then they wouldn’t partake in the voluntary transaction.  So you can find mutual benefit even in a competitive world.  Secondly, if options are limited, you can expand them by changing the parameters.  Success isn’t just playing in the NFL if you like football; there are many other leagues, positions, and ways to succeed in the field.  Third, even if you do have to compete, everyone joins the competition wanting to win or lose fairly with everyone bringing their best.  So they go in knowing that a loss is possible; they also know that winning is not everything and that losing is how they learn and get better.  So there are a variety of ways to address this, but you don’t have to worry about limitations, losing, or other factors when there are so many ways to succeed.
• They Want a Negative Outcome – To address the elephant in the room, there are times when people seem to want negative outcomes.  The truth of the matter is that they want positive outcomes and think that a negative outcome is necessary to attain it.  For example, someone steals thinking that that’s the only/best/fastest/easiest way to get what they want.  Someone wants to harm another because they believe that the feeling of retribution would be positive for them after experiencing harm from them first.  Someone might think that others’ demise is required for them to succeed—either their life is being threatened (e.g., self-defense) or they have the misconception that it’s happening (e.g., anything from two people fighting over a mate to Hitler believing that genocide was necessary for the country’s success).  In any situation, the desire for a negative outcome is really a desire for a positive outcome that is overshadowed.  It might be hard to imagine, but when you realize that people kill people they know because they want their love, that people want to hurt others because they were harmed, and that people do bad things hoping that it’ll make them feel better, then you’ll see that people only want a positive outcome and think the negative outcome is a necessary part of what they want.  It is not, but it certainly seems that way from a certain point of view.

As you can see, the positive outcome is the goal.  You want to feel better.  You want to be better.  You want the people you care about to succeed.  You may want to have a key role in attaining it (e.g., a championship), or you may just be happy with getting it regardless of what you do (e.g., a fun party).  Understanding this, now you know that what you want to do is identify positive outcomes that you want in your life and build that desire and belief in them so that you continue working toward them (or resting and relaxing so you can enjoy and appreciate the positive things in your life).

So stop trying to find some external validation on what you’re supposed to be doing with your life and start viewing the world and listening to your feelings toward them.  When you perceive something as positive and want it, that is the positive outcome you’re shooting for.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s big or small, socially desirable or not, whether anyone understands or not, or even whether you necessarily understand (yet) or not.  Find the positive outcomes you’re looking for in your life, and you’ll have a meaningful purpose that you’ll always have guiding you forward in life.