While this blog is intentionally focused on helping you figure out your life for yourself, many people do want hints at to what they should care about in life: goals to have, things to focus on or prioritize, or just simply what to do. While everyone’s life goals will be different, there is, fortunately, a short list of things that everyone in general should care about in their lives (again, I’m not making you care, but they will at least get you started). Let’s go through them here.
Health
To quote the famous The Princess Bride comment made by Christopher Guest’s character Count Rugen, “If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.” (if you know the line, you can probably picture his fake smile at the end of that line that is comedy gold) Health is required for you to realize your full potential in life, so you should absolutely care about it. Take care of yourself with decent nutrition, hydration, sleep, exercise, and enough fresh air and sunlight to maintain your physical well-being. Supplement that with appropriate medical care and social interactions to ensure that you don’t face any physical or emotional maladies that will prevent you from enjoying life.
Wealth
You don’t need to be rich—there are plenty of miserable wealthy people. You need to have enough resources to maintain your health as well as anything else you need to acquire the skills, materials, or other assets that will allow you to do what you want to do in life. You don’t need to afford to fly in a private jet all over the world if that’s not what you want to do, but you might need to be able to afford transportation, resources for your children, or extra money to pursue a hobby or side business that you always wanted to try. The idea is to have a financial goal to be able to afford what you need to live plus whatever else you want to pursue your interests in life.
Human Connection (e.g., friendships, love)
We are humans, after all, and so we are a social species that form familial bonds, friendship bonds, and romantic bonds for the good of our survival. Fortunately or unfortunately, we not only need those bonds to live, but we need those bonds to live (i.e., we needed them to survive in a dangerous world, but now we need them to not be miserable and alone). So you need to pursue enough human connection so that your needs are satisfied in that area. Note that you might be the loner who just needs yourself and a dog in the wilderness for 20 years, or you might be the social butterfly who needs to be constantly meeting new people and making new social connections. No matter what you face, however, you will realize that you need at least the bare minimum of this or else your brain will punish you with loneliness until you change your behavior to one that finds other people to connect with.
Children
Now, I want to be clear that I’m not going to try to convince you to have children. There are plenty of people who (at least claim to) live happy lives without them. However, when listing universal goals, this has to be on the list because all living organisms (with the rare exception of mutations where that drive is missing) are wired to reproduce. Note that not all of them get to reproduce and many want to perform the act that causes reproduction but don’t want the output, but those are exceptions that prove the general rule: having children is an act that can immediately jumpstart a sense of meaning in life. Note that you don’t have to have the children yourself: Mother Theresa, for example, helped many, many children without having her own. The idea is that helping the next generation grow up to lead happy, healthy, successful lives is a noble cause that many—if not most—people can get behind. (note: I know that more people are becoming childless in modern societies, but that is a cultural trend and social engineering against the biological imperative vs. evidence that it’s not a goal that most people could have; and just because it’s always an option doesn’t mean that you have to select it for yourself)
Professional Success
This applies to men more than women (because men are judged by how useful they are), but being good at something is a universal way to feel a sense of meaning and purpose because it works two-fold: it makes you feel good about yourself because you are proficient at something, and it is important for your sense of purpose that you deliver value to other people in someway. It doesn’t matter what it is: collecting trash, singing, entertaining, managing a business, etc. As long as you do a good job, you can find meaning in your profession. (Note: yes, some professions are more admired or have higher social status, but that is more of an element of successful mating or social affiliation than meaning per se)
Education
The desire to learn more may have evolved as a driving force to have a competitive advantage over other living organisms regarding their survival, but it’s now something that not only continues pushing humanity’s understanding of the universe to its limits but also something that brings people meaning and purpose as they seek to learn and know more about the fields that interest them. To be clear, you don’t have to be trying to cure cancer for your learning to be meaningful; whether you care about trains, astronomy, sports, or horses, your quest to learn more will feel like a meaningful one when you find a topic that you’re passionate about.
Spiritual Connection
I of course have to preface this with the disclaimer that you don’t have to be spiritual or religious in this life if you don’t want to. But there is a universal drive for connection to/with things outside of yourself. It starts with social connection, discussed above, but regardless of whether it’s just a biological need for community gone haywire or a real need to connect to a higher power of some sort like God or The Universe, there is an intrinsic need to feel like you are part of something. The old saying, “There are no atheists in foxholes,” points out the fact that we all seek to understand, predict, and control the world around us and will turn to any means to achieve our desired outcomes. There’s also the search for “greater meaning” or “a higher purpose” where your goals are beyond yourself. So however you wish to manifest this need—e.g., you are religious, spiritual, mindful/present, or part of a community with shared beliefs, values, and goals—you will likely find yourself dabbling in a broader connection with (and, arguably, significance in) the world around you.
Skills
Similar to education, we all want to be seen as “good”—meaning valuable, moral, and capable. Capability is an interesting thing; for men, for example, it proves your worthiness as an effective mate. Competency can also affect your social status. For women, there is the modern dual skill set of professional and personal skills, often around areas like communication, relationship building, healthcare, human resources, and children. Skills are highly tied to a person’s self-esteem and, therefore, are sought out as a means to maximize their life outcomes. Skills are things that are difficult to lose—you can lose your money, family, friends, faith, job, and all of your worldly possessions and rebuild it all with the right skills.
Creativity
People seek novelty, and they also seek to stand out from the crowd. They also are highly effective at problem solving, which is important for survival. With a combination of these intrinsic needs, it’s no surprise that most people have the occasional need for what is commonly known as a “creative outlet”—e.g., art, music, writing, storytelling, building, game-playing—to feel fulfilled. The idea is simple: you are a living being who wants to express your individuality and explore what it means to be human. It’s those drives that cause people to try things that they have never tried before, to create something new, and to do things for the sake of doing them—i.e., to have that experience and see how it impacts your life.
Freedom and Safety
To optimize your growth, you have two competing needs: the ability to do what you want/need to do without restriction, and the ability to do what you want/need to do without harm. I intentionally put these things together because you can’t have both to their fullest extent: if you live in a house, you can’t walk through the walls—but neither can other people or animals. So, you are less free but more safe if you install barriers. Conversely, you are more free but less safe if you go live in the woods; you are more free to roam around, but a bear can walk right up to you and attack. With all things in life, you are trying to maximize your freedom and safety through a variety of means, from earning more money (more ability and less risk) to finding shelter to finding a capable mate. But if you buy a home, you are less free to move; if you leave your social group, you are free to find new friends or things to do but don’t have anyone to rely on when you are in need. It’s the unfortunate reality that you can’t have 100% of both, but you can get the optimal mix that works for you to live the life you want. There are people who willingly live without a home to be completely free, and there are people who check themselves into a rehabilitation center to be completely protected from themselves and their harmful behaviors. Clearly, those individuals sacrificed a huge amount of safety and freedom, respectively, for the other, but if they believe it is right for their lives, then that is their decision to make.
Assets
I am separating this from Wealth because there are plenty of assets that do not have a high market value but that have sentimental value or significance to the person. If you want to have the world’s largest collection of Elvis memorabilia, for example, that might not make you financially wealthy, but it might make you happy. Assets include houses, cars, collections, property, technology, and equipment. Many people find great meaning, for example, in maintaining the Hoover Dam or the Statue of Liberty. Others love their home and their vehicles. It is all about what makes you feel like you have accomplished something in your life and that you have what you need to live your life to the fullest.
I’m sure you can think of more, but this is just a list to give you an idea for what most people will typically strive for. Note that just because these are universal goals meaning that anyone can have them, they are not universal in that you must have them. No one is making you, though you will likely feel peer and parental pressure (among other forms) throughout your life to have certain goals that you may or may not wish to have. It is up to you what you choose to pursue in life; this post is simply to show you that there are things you can strive for in life…You do not have to look very far to find anything. What you do with these options will determine your life path.