Goals, Missions, and The Arrival Fallacy
"When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it." - W. Clement Stone
This past weekend I finished reading "Undaunted Courage: The Pioneering First Mission to Explore America's Wild Frontier" by Stephen Ambrose. It took me a year and a half to finish. Not just because I'm a slow dyslexic reader when it comes to dead tree books, but also because it was part of my nightstand library. Some nights, I might read a couple of pages before my eyelids became too heavy to keep open. In that respect, my reading almost tracked to the calendar of Lewis and Clark's expedition to find a water way to the Pacific Ocean.
But I digress. What struck me most about the story was how quickly Meriwether Lewis unraveled after the completion of the expedition. Just three years and a few months after his triumphant return to St. Louis, Lewis was an alcoholic and deeply in debt. He died by his own hand at the age of 35.
Two things in particular stand out in my mind as having aggravated Lewis' demise, independent of his specific mental afflictions - variously speculated as depression or schizophrenia. The first is the simple fact that his three year mission, as commander of the Corps of Discovery, had concluded. After having completed a feat on par with the great explorers of history, where does one go next? Given the times (early 19th century) there were few opportunities to top such a successful and important mission. This might be comparable to the more recent history of landing on the moon after a decade of planning and preparing. Where does one seek to put their footprint next?
T.S. Eliot wrote,
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
It's possible Lewis was in part captured by what Tal Ben-Shahar, a Harvard-trained positive psychology expert, calls the arrival fallacy. However there were many things not working in his life during the three years after his return - failed relationships, failed business ventures, failed efforts at publishing his journals (something a great many people were looking forward to, including his mentor and sponsor, President Jefferson.) Regardless Lewis' personal demons, it's a fact that one of the greatest missions a man could undertake in the early 19th century had concluded with great success and there was nothing of equal importance to take it's place.
A second factor may have been President's Jefferson's miscalculation in appointing Lewis to be Governor of the Louisiana Territory. This put Lewis in essentially a bureaucratic position. Politics were not one of Lewis' strengths and as a consequence he made many enemies and failed at completing many of the administrative duties required of the position. Bureaucracy is antithetical to an explorer's (or experimenter's) nature.
Taken together, I wonder if Lewis' experience of "arriving where he started" was in such sharp contrast to what he had been experiencing moment to moment for the previous three years it left him feeling out of place. A stranger in a strange land.
That said, what follows is from my perspective as a man. Perhaps the same can be said about some women or perhaps even most women. It's not for me to say. My perspective certainly doesn't apply to all men, particularly in 21st century America.
Missions are different from goals. I had an ambitious goal when I went for a double major in college. It was difficult and, to an 18 year old, a four year commitment seemed like a long time. But the way was clearly mapped out. Which classes to take and when. What grades were needed to pass. Where to go for lectures. Missions, however, have a lot of unknowns. There is a lot to discover about what needs to be done and they challenge those who undertake them in surprising ways. In this respect, they can often expand into quests - deeply personal and transformative challenges.
"The only thing that never works for anybody is pure intellectual speculation. You will never get answers by just reading books, discussing theories, and contemplating thoughts." - Yuval Noah Harari, "21 Lessons for the 21st Century"
Knowing myself and the men in my circle of family and friends, we are happier when solving problems while engaged with something physical. There is purpose and meaning in action. While each of us may have accomplished great things with our intellect and education, it's the physical activity that holds it all together. Regular strenuous hikes, working in the woodshop, and playing the cello are all ways I actively engage in problem solving.
The physical activity - absent in academic study or video games - dispels the illusion of changelessness, evicts the false sense of security, and heightens the sense of accomplishment. To accept insecurity and uncertainty is to commit to the unknown. Paradoxically, this creates a relaxed calm about the future and faith in Nature. In Buddhist teachings, this is often referred to as the middle way, the razor's edge we seek between trusting God and being alert to the vagaries of a Cruelly Indifferent Universe.
Missions can take many forms - raising a family, leading a team on a complex project, renovating a house, building a successful business, taking care of someone who is sick. All the better when we can find happiness while in pursuit of the many goals that define our various missions.
If you have any questions, need anything clarified, or have something else on your mind, please use the comments section or email me directly.