lifestyle

Obligations versus Objectives

No matter how high powered your life is, you still have to go to the dentist.  You still have to organize your tax, or organize someone to organize it for you.  You still have to play with your kids or support a friend who needs an ear.  You still have to go through airport customs or sit in traffic.  These are the obligations of living as a human.

These things are unavoidable and part of every real life.  The only problem is that they don’t seem to contribute to our goals.  It seems like these obligations conflict with our objectives and we all know how bad that feels.

This morning, I had a full schedule worked out.  It included working on a few things that were very important to me as well as taking a walk with my kids to the park.  The obligation kicked in when we met some friends down the park, and I was obliged to stay all morning down there while my daughter ran and jumped and squealed with her friends.  I know all about how obligations come up against objectives because I am writing this late at night with a long list of things still to accomplish, left over from this morning.

Most of our obligations fall into 2 categories:

1. Those that we can make more productive or efficient
2. Those that we can’t

The first type include things like finding an accountant, visiting a dentist, cleaning your house.  These things are practical and essential, but can be streamlined and batched; minimized and outsourced.  These things are covered by a myriad of books like Getting Things Done and many websites like ZenHabits.  These tools will give anyone the ability to minimize the impact that the first type of obligation has on their ability to achieve their objectives.

The second type of obligation are a different breed altogether.  They include the obligation to support your partner, the obligation to take your nephew to the football, your obligation to help your friend in grief, and maybe your obligation to minimize your negative environmental or ethical impact on your world.  These sort of things are important parts of a balanced life, but they often don’t directly contribute to your goals, or the fulfillment of your potential.  The biggest problem with these things is that they cannot be concentrated or made more efficient.  We all know how ridiculous the concept of quality time is, and how it is usually just an excuse to dodge our obligations.  Some obligations simply cost time and energy, this cannot be reduced.  Either the obligations are in your life or they are out of it.

If you decide that one of these obligations is in your life - a stable partner for example - then you have made a decision that says something about your objectives.  Without actually realising it, you have uncovered a hidden objective in your life.  The fact that you have a stable partner says something about your desire to be in a relationship like this.  If you want to be in a relationship like this, then there are certain things you must do.  These things are what we usually call obligations.  In fact they are just the actions that we take to pursue our objectives. 

If you think back to my story about this morning, you will recall that I thought that spending all that time at the park was an obligation, but doing all the other things that I had planned were simply actions towards my objectives.  When I remember that I actually want to be a good father, and I want to give my kids a fun and exciting time, then I realise that this too is an objective.  So spending time at the park with them is no more an obligation than what I would call my goal actions. 

Often the only difference between an objective and an obligation, is that what we call an obligation isn’t clear enough to us, to list amongst our life objectives.  If an obligation doesn’t fall into the first category, and it doesn’t feel like an objective (past present or future) then maybe it doesn’t deserve a place in your life.

Perhaps it is time we rewrote our life objectives to realistically include all of what we once called obligations.  Then perhaps we can free ourselves up from panic and frantic action and instead really try to make the most of these hidden objectives.

Which obstacles in your life are actually objectives in disguise?

Thanks

Tom