Essay 15: Why Bother To Do Anything?

Becoming outward-focused–our common purpose–does not appear to require a lot of skill. Working a few days a month at a food bank and helping an elderly person navigate daily activities would seem to be the kinds of activities that meet the criteria. Where is the impetus to study, become adept at a trade, invent or create?

When asked by a parent what he wanted to be when he grew up, no child ever answered, “I don’t want to do anything. Eating junk food, playing video games, and watching YouTube seems like a good plan.” From an early age, we possess the knowledge that we are supposed to do something with our lives. A professional ballerina tells her interviewer that she always wanted to dance, that she knew that this was how she would spend her life. The theoretical physicist recalls even as a young child being fascinated by how things work. Even those of us who were not so focused had aspirations for our future.

We are hard-wired to wish to accomplish things. Accomplishments are one of the two primary sources of personal happiness. (The other is the development and nurturing of interpersonal relationships.) In this essay, we will explore why accomplishments are a source of personal happiness and why accruing them is critical to successfully becoming outward-focused.

We feel good when we successfully complete a task or project. It’s not simply the finished product that generates that feeling. It is that we started and completed the project, that we began from square one and made it to the end. That sense of fulfillment wasn’t given to us by any person, institution, or government. We earned it. Accomplishments are the major source of self-esteem.

When we were toddlers and took our first step, our parents beamed with pride and showered us with praise. As each year passed, the expectations increased. In order to obtain praise, we had to have accomplished something more than successfully making our way across a room on two legs. Humans are quite good at differentiating admiration for real accomplishments from credit for something we didn’t earn.

An anecdote from one of my previous books, What Do I Do Now? A Handbook for Life, provides an example.

A teenager is standing in line for a hot dog at a concession stand. A woman in the front of the line does not notice that a twenty-dollar bill has fallen from her purse while she is collecting her food. The teenager sees it begin to blow away and quietly leaves the line and retrieves it. Just as he is about to slip it into his pocket, he locks eyes with an eight-year-old who has witnessed the entire event and is about to tell her father what she saw. Our teenager quickly says, in a voice loud enough for all to hear, “Excuse me, ma’am. You dropped this,” and begins to walk towards her with the bill in his outstretched hand. The woman thanks him and the people in line comment on what a fine, honest young man he is.

That queue of people assumed the best of the young man. His character seemed exemplary. Our teenager, though, was well aware of his initial intent. We never fool ourselves. We know what we have earned and what we have received undeservedly. Words from strangers are no match for what we know to be true.

“If you give a man a fish,” the biblical parable goes, “you have fed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you have fed him for a lifetime.” While that saying is intended as a lesson that teaching someone how to perform a task is a lifelong skill that will empower that person to provide for themselves in the future, there is an additional implication. Learning to fish is a metaphor for generating accomplishments. The act of learning and then implementing a skill engenders confidence and enhances self-esteem.

What happens when the converse is the case, when we are rewarded for or given something we have not earned through our own efforts? That depends on what is received. There is no shame in accepting food and shelter when, due to some misfortune, we are unable to provide them for ourselves and our families. Everyone needs some type of assistance sometime.

Legitimate government entitlements are one thing. Our schools increasingly promote and graduate students who have learned little, who have accomplished next to nothing academically. Their diploma is a sham. Releasing them into the world without the tools they will need to successfully make their way through life is cruel. This pattern is repeated in other venues. When we hire someone for a job for a reason other than the value of their efforts and successes, we do them an equal disservice. Self-esteem is never enhanced when we are given that which we have not earned. In fact, just as it was for the teenager in the story above, it is most often decreased.

That is the problem with policies that replace merit with racial, ethnic, gender, or any other identity-based criteria. They cheat the recipient and diminish that person’s sense of value. The unintended consequence of unearned praise or reward is that confidence is eroded. We might delude ourselves for a short time, but eventually, doubt gains the upper hand. If instead we know that we have earned what we have received, our confidence grows. That is why success breeds success. Once you have savored your first victory, others rapidly follow. We witness this phenomenon in so many areas of life.

Confidence is essential for maximizing our ability to be outward-focused. We cannot effectively help others if we doubt our own value. This is why we must strive to create, build, and learn. The fruits of those labors are invaluable. They solidify our sense of self-worth. They are the true source of self-esteem and confidence. It is only when we are confident in ourselves and our abilities that we can successfully evolve from selfish to selfless, from inward to outward-focused. This is the equivalent of putting on your oxygen mask first on a plane before assisting someone else with theirs.

Everyone should strive to get really good at something. Everyone has the ability to get really good at something. This is the message we should be broadcasting loud and clear to children and young adults. It is fine to accept assistance, but don’t allow others, despite their best intentions, to cheat you of the effort. Nothing empowers like the feeling of mastering a skill or knowing all there is to know about a subject because you put in the work.

Overcoming obstacles and accumulating accomplishments are not burdens we must endure. They are opportunities to advance. Embrace them, for they are the medium through which we arrive at wisdom.

Next: The Magic of Reinventing Yourself

When: June 29, 2022