What is the aim or purpose of your life? Articles such as these that promote "success" and "productivity" seldom ask that question in earnest. Oh, sure, they tell you to have a "single purpose focus," but the don't encourage you to evaluate it in terms of its real value--only that you can be better at it than anyone else and build ego in the world. Yet, the question of your aim must first be clearly asked and answered and evaluated before advice such as that given in this article can be considered. On your deathbed, how important will this purpose have been? Will it have been important enough to treat other people like objects of your intention so that you have no deep, lasting relationships? This article gives distinctly Western advice about how to beat the world into ones own idea of perfection and how to leave ones stain on the planet, bigger than anyone else's. It is disrespectful to fellow humans. Clearly, if one has customers that one seeks to force into one's own "single purpose focus," they can go elsewhere; the focuser would probably never notice because he/she is so clearly focused. No one else's objectives are more important than one's own. People are moved in and out of one's life for their usefulness. Who are these peons to whom one delegates? And the idea of getting up earlier--perhaps it is productive in the short term, but unless you are still getting eight hours of good sleep a night you are gaining productivity at the expense of your own good health. I wonder the quality of the relationships of these "productive" people; I wonder how much joy they have ever inspired in others; I wonder how much of the beauty of life they have ever experienced. Have they ever experienced the joy of a deep breath of rain soaked air? I cannot imagine the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hahn giving such advice as this, and yet they have both improved the lives of others immeasurably.
On Aug 12, 2013 InnerDirected wrote:
What is the aim or purpose of your life? Articles such as these that promote "success" and "productivity" seldom ask that question in earnest. Oh, sure, they tell you to have a "single purpose focus," but the don't encourage you to evaluate it in terms of its real value--only that you can be better at it than anyone else and build ego in the world. Yet, the question of your aim must first be clearly asked and answered and evaluated before advice such as that given in this article can be considered. On your deathbed, how important will this purpose have been? Will it have been important enough to treat other people like objects of your intention so that you have no deep, lasting relationships? This article gives distinctly Western advice about how to beat the world into ones own idea of perfection and how to leave ones stain on the planet, bigger than anyone else's. It is disrespectful to fellow humans. Clearly, if one has customers that one seeks to force into one's own "single purpose focus," they can go elsewhere; the focuser would probably never notice because he/she is so clearly focused. No one else's objectives are more important than one's own. People are moved in and out of one's life for their usefulness. Who are these peons to whom one delegates? And the idea of getting up earlier--perhaps it is productive in the short term, but unless you are still getting eight hours of good sleep a night you are gaining productivity at the expense of your own good health. I wonder the quality of the relationships of these "productive" people; I wonder how much joy they have ever inspired in others; I wonder how much of the beauty of life they have ever experienced. Have they ever experienced the joy of a deep breath of rain soaked air? I cannot imagine the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hahn giving such advice as this, and yet they have both improved the lives of others immeasurably.