Don’t Take Advice from Programmed-Out Adults

Friedrich Nietzsche said that human beings fool themselves to orient towards the future.

We tend to rationalize our sub-optimal choices in order to keep debilitating emotions at bay, and move forward with our lives.

“My children were meant to be born” utters one woman with an otherwise unhappy marriage.

“It pays well” utters another with a grossly unsatisfying job.

“If <undesirable event> didn’t happen, then I wouldn’t be who I am today”, says another.

Of course, things are for the most part, never perfect, and perhaps there is some utility in the deterministic world view that life happens to you, and by accepting this rather than fighting it, we can align expectations with reality and be more content.

But doing so also renders us likely to lead a very mediocre and unfulfilling life, and given that we only get one life (as best as we can tell), is this how we want to spend it?

We might never reach the peak of the mountain, but by virtue of reaching for it we’re more likely to have a more fulfilling experience of life than if we forever sat at the foot of the mountain by the relative safety and warmth of a campfire.