Anchor Goals or Duties

Challenges in Knowing

As one starts seeking knowledge about how to lead a good life, one encounters a few challenges. I will outline these challenges in the next few paragraphs. However, before I proceed, can you guess what these challenges might be?

One could think of "Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise" as a good indicator of what a good life should be. But this triad does not make explicit a few aspects of good life because they are all subsumed under "wise". For example, there is no mention about family or society.

Some knowledge sources discuss good life, but one can feel that the things being discussed are too abstract. One is unable to figure out "what to do?".

When pursuing knowledge about a good life, one can follow the chain of links from one kind of knowledge to another. The knowledge that we may be investigating could be interesting. But, it may be about something that is insignificant for leading a good life.

While pursuing a good life, one can encounter failures and doubts. The sources discussing good life may not have a good enough advice on how to deal with such failures and doubts.

Sometimes, in the pursuit of good life, one may also encounter scarcity of motivation. How is one supposed to address this situation?

The Framework

I have a framework that overcome all these challenges. But, before I present it, would you like to formulate your own framework in which all these challenges are addressed?

In the next several paragraphs, I will detail my framework.

I propose a list of what I am calling as "anchor goals". I will enumerate a few goals that would most likely be satisfied when one experiencing a good life. With these goals enumerated, one can begin a day and choose which of these goals to work on. With these goals enumerated, one can periodically review one's progress on each of these goals. Having reviewed, one could alter one's plan for study and practice.

Yet another important use of these anchor goals is as follows: when chasing down links from one kind of knowledge to another, one can use the anchor goals to assess "how far away is this kind of knowledge from the anchor goals?". If it is too far from the anchor goals, then it is likely that pursuing that knowledge will have minimal contribution one's endeavor of pursuing a good life.

In the context of anchor goals, we will interchangeably use the words "goals" and "duties". So we are discussing "anchor goals" and "anchor duties". The items on the list are the same, but the perspective of viewing them is different. When viewed as "goals", the items are something to be achieved. When viewed as "duties", the items are something to be worked on, regardless of the fact that we have or have not achieved them.

Since we are interested in having a good life, the "goal" perspective denotes the things that we want to seek or should want to seek. At the same time, the "duty" perspective keeps reminding us that we have to take the effort to obtain the good life that we seek. If we desire it, then it is our "duty" to take the necessary effort to continue moving closer to our "goal".

Anchor goals are listed under two sections: Personal Goals and Other Goals.

Here are the Personal Anchor Goals:

Keep your home clean and tidy daily. If you cannot do it, there is a mismatch between your capabilities and your belongings. Resolve this mismatch.
Know thyself.
- Have clarity about who you are, what you can do, and what you must do.
- Know your measurable characteristics, qualities, talents, knowledge, strengths, weaknesses, threats, opportunities, and duties.
- Think about how you would want to be remembered.
Build and take care of your health.
Build and take care of your wealth.
Seek knowledge that helps you lead a good life.
Express your human capabilities.
Have fun doing all the above.

Once you are competent in taking care of your personal anchor goals and duties, that experience will help you take care of other anchor duties.

Here are the Other Anchor Goals or Duties:

Know and perform your duties towards your family.
Know and perform your duties towards your community.
Know and perform your duties towards your society.
Know and perform your duties towards the entire world.
Explore your stance about and connection with the super-natural.

Living a good life has many aspects. Each one of those aspects can be traced to one of these anchor goals or anchor duties.

Can you think of any aspect of a good life that is not traceable to one of these anchor goals or duties?

When we view the items on our anchor list as goals, we can establish sub-goals and achieve them and have the pleasure of achieving something and even celebrate it. We can always add more sub-goals to keep the journey of a good life going in interesting ways.

If you ever think that one of the items on the list of anchor goals has been achieved, then you are mistaken. Why? because just think about the situation that you declare that all the items on your anchor list are achieved? What will you do now? Having achieved all your goals, is it the case that you can do nothing? If you do nothing, will you continue having the good life?

The good life is a journey. At any moment in this journey, either the goal will propel you or the duty will propel you.

For many things that one strives to achieve, one obtains success. But, sometimes we are not entirely in control of the things that would assure success. So, one invariably encounters failure despite putting in all possible effort. Have you explored how you will deal with this aspect of life? It is bound to happen; you got to have a plan to deal with it. You don't want these kinds of failures to derail your good life. Perhaps invoking the super-natural can help.

In very rare circumstances, one may start having doubts about the validity of the self-established goals. This is a tricky situation because when one doubts one's own goals as worthy, then there are plenty of things about oneself that one can start doubting. The duty perspective helps in dealing with this situation. With a duty perspective, one can continue striving towards the goal even when one casts doubts about its validity. With a duty perspective, one can objectively undertake a thorough scrutiny of the previously established goals or sub-goals. In either case, the doubt is dealt with.

That completes the description of my framework.

Is the Framework Good Enough

Does this framework address the challenges that we discussed earlier?

How does this framework compare with the one you proposed?

What are your thoughts on the goal-duty duality of the items on the anchor list?

This discussion has expressed good life in terms of an explicit short list of anchor items that are to be viewed as goals and as duties. This short list directly or indirectly encompasses everything that is involved in a good life. It is formulation and expression. How does the formulation and expression of "good life" in various philosophies, religions, and other sources of thought compare to this formulation and expression?

If I have seen farther, it is because I have been standing on the shoulders of giants.

For each of the anchor items, can you list all the major philosophies and religions and other major knowledge sources that mention that item in generality. If there differences in my expression of the item versus theirs, highlight that difference as well.