A Balance of Focus

Today, I was talking to someone about some life advice she had read. The basic gist of the advice seemed to be that we should figure out how much pain we're willing to suffer for the sake of our goals and only pursue goals for which we are willing to suffer. The person I was talking to had some different ideas about good life advice. Specifically, she said that we should focus on our goals and use our desire to reach our goals help us muscle through the pain that is necessary to achieve them.

In my opinion, there's some truth to both of them. If you want to climb a mountain, but there are rocks and trees and bushes between the mountain and you, you shouldn't be so concerned with the rock and trees and bushes that you lose sight of the mountain and veer off course, but at the same time, you shouldn't focus so hard on the mountain that you ignore, and run into, the rocks and trees and bushes between you. There has to be a balance of focus. We shouldn't get so caught up in the drudgery of our daily tasks that we lose sight of our ultimate goal, and we shouldn't get so caught up in the dream of our ultimate goal that we neglect the daily tasks that'll get us there.

While the advice she had heard had some merit, the person I was talking to had the better advice. Instead of focusing on the necessary, painful work we have to do or neglecting the work in favor of dreaming of our goal, we should use our goal and our desire to achieve it to motivate us to take on the work we have to do to accomplish our goal.

The goal must not be forgotten, and the work must not be neglected. We need to balance our focus between both.