Picking right up where we left off in the preceding companion piece in which you drank coffee and chose the ultimate end for your life, we proceed to the second of wisdom’s applications. Wisdom chooses the best end, then uses the best means to achieve it. So, the wise use the best means.
I didn’t learn about the application of means and ends to my life until after I’d already confused them royally. At 17, I entered college as a freshman. I chose the college I attended because I loved the basketball team. Seriously. What was not to love? Michael Jordan had just helped the team win a national championship. Is there any better criterion for choosing a university?
So, at 17 I arrived on campus with a cooler, a stereo with huge speakers, a bong, and some albums. My pre-med roommate said he’d never seen a freshman so outfitted. I probably took his meaning the wrong way… it made me proud.
I had not just arrived on campus, by God, I had arrived in LIFE! And I was at the summit! King of my Universe! And let me tell you, as king, I had a helluva lot of fun. All my gear was put to incessant use.
2 Years Later
It took two years to realize I had selected the wrong end.
As much as I loved cheering MJ’s exploits as a man among boys at Carmichael Auditorium (this was pre-Dean E. Smith Center, mind you), the lifestyle was unsustainable. The classes were dull. My other roommate spent two hours a night on a single accounting problem. I knew that wasn’t for me. I had no conception of why I was there once basketball season ended. The football team was mediocre even then.
The wise use the best means, and I was as far from wise as I was from equalling Jordan’s skills as a basketball player. I didn’t know what means even were.
A Long, Strange Trip
So I left college with questions about life college couldn’t answer. I went on the road to follow around the Grateful Dead instead. Hey now, don’t laugh! There are worse means to use exploring the meaning of life and consciousness than Dead shows.
Anyway, after a long, strange trip, I now know what ends and means are all about. I know that college is a means to an end, not the end. And I know a job is a means to an end, not the end. Likewise, money, most learning, etc.
Once you’ve chosen wisely and selected your life mission, your ultimate end, you’ll need to determine what it will take to achieve it. What path will bring you there? What metaphorical mode of transportation?
Remember, it is not enough to casually try out the best means. You must use them diligently. Along with diligence is patience, teachability, and flexibility. The best ends take time. It takes a lot of time to figure out what value is. Then more time to know what is valuable enough to make it your life’s pursuit. Still more to adopt the best means and stick with the program.
But if it is truly valuable enough, a wise choice, and therefore worthy of the effort, don’t make the effort by all means—make it by the best means. That’s what the wise do.
# 78 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Wisdom is also the application of the best means for the most valuable ends. See # 77 above for initial thoughts regarding wisdom.
In keeping with the string of tips and stories about intelligence, truth, and wisdom, this is the reader’s digest summation. Wisdom chooses the best end, then achieves it by the best methods.
Easier said than done.
Getting lost in the weeds of esoteric ideas is no benefit if you want to be wise (and who doesn’t want to be?). Simple answers and concepts are the most helpful to get you and keep you on track.
The Best End
You may wish to grab a Venti-sized latté while you ponder what this means to you. It will take a while.
What is the mainspring of your life? What is your ultimate reason, purpose, goal? Why do you do what you do? What is it you’re hoping for?
The ultimate end of a person’s life dictates their life, morality, their praiseworthiness or guilt. It is the motive behind every decision. It is the mission statement, even if unspoken, deeply buried in the unconscious.
Wisdom is the choice of the best (most valuable) end.
Which is what exactly? What is the correct answer?
America’s founding documents declare it to be, “the pursuit of happiness”—but is the pursuit, or the happiness—the end?
If happiness; is that the most valuable end? Is your happiness more valuable than mine? It may be to you, but when weighed on a universal scale? Are they not equal?
And if that has you scratching your head, assuming a belief in God, is your happiness more valuable than God’s? And are you more deserving of happiness than God is?
That will keep the mental wheels spinning a while.
Lest we digress too much, a repetition is in order. Wisdom is the choice of the best end.
Oh, that’s easy, you say. Lots of money is the best, most valuable end. But is it? Is money more valuable than time? What is an extra hour at the end of your life going for on the open market nowadays? A day? A year? Pretty pricey if you can find a vendor.
Well, ok then, time is more valuable, you agree. But is time more valuable than health, or peace of mind? Would any reader wish to live for eternity with a tormented mind? Or with a debilitating illness?
No? Didn’t think so.
This explains why philosopher types are so vilified. So damn many questions!
Still, you must choose a worthy end of your own if you hope to be wise. Your choice of end shows your wisdom—or lack thereof. A hint: You’ve already chosen an end regardless of whether you know what it is. We all have. But you can move off the default choice, which is to live entirely with regard for your own momentary pleasures as fully as possible, to some more valuable and well-considered purpose.
The Best Way To Get There
This is going to have to wait for another treatment of its own. You’ve got plenty to work on.
The Old Well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Photo by Dan Sears.
# 69 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: A college education is a useful context for exposure to knowledge you may not be familiar with. You may just discover your cup of tea.
It’s important to remember many successful persons never completed college. Not that they weren’t intelligent. Foregoing college didn’t prevent them from furthering their knowledge, skills, or education. They gained these from non-traditional methods and paid no tuition to do so.
My college story
Full Disclaimer: I didn’t complete a degree. The University of my choice accepted me as a student. It was the only school I applied to, and I received a half-ride scholarship. At 17, going to my favorite University felt like I’d achieved my only life goal. I was excited to attend. But I was ill prepared to regard college as the means to a greater end. I arrived filled with questions about life. But I couldn’t get the answers in the classroom. They weren’t even asking the same questions. So, I left after 2 years.
My lack of a bachelor’s degree only bothers me when I contemplate a normal life. Thankfully, this is rare. It is a glaring omission on my resume. But I haven’t been resume dependent, so that’s never been an issue. Despite the lack of a degree, I’m well read. I’ve always been curious, with an insatiable appetite to learn new things. These traits factored in to my decision to leave college. The rigid structure left me cold, impatient with the pace of the process. I was curious and hot to know everything—now—prerequisites be damned!
I owe what education I have to my continuing curiosity and acquisitiveness. My education isn’t the formal kind, but then my living isn’t the normal kind.
But I encourage and urge my college-age kids to get a degree (one of whom just did—with honors, I might add). I stress college as a means to some end they will need to choose for themselves. I hope they will see college as a useful stepping stone on the path of life. My rationale is mostly for the reasons I touch on in this brief piece. So I suppose I’m one of those do as I say, not as I did, parents regarding a college degree.
Success stories without degrees are exceptional today
Non-degreed success stories represent the exception in modern times. Especially so in a knowledge based economy, more and more dependent on novel technologies, and those trained to use them. The pursuit of a degree provides opportunities for exposure to technologies and skills acquisition, making the degree holder more marketable, all other factors being equal.
Even mediocre students should go to college. Especially if they remain unsure of their skill set, talents, or career interests. A college degree today is what a high school diploma was in the early 80s when I graduated from high school.
It is an entry-level requirement for a satisfying job. Yes, the value of the degree has decreased in inverse proportion to its necessity and ubiquity. Yes, many undergrads with degrees today have potential adjusted earnings no greater than their high school graduate counterparts of 40 years ago, as discussed in this Forbes article.
The factors affecting the value of a degree from one generation to the next are beyond this advice and opinion piece. But, if you’re interested in further reading, the aforementioned and linked Forbes article is a good place to start.
Regardless of generational valuations, exposure to knowledge is valuable in its own right. And college is a fantastic means of exposure to varied knowledge if nothing else.
Degree holders earn significantly more
But… setting aside the generalized devaluation of a degree comparing successive generations, the potential earnings of today’s bachelor’s degree holders compared to only high school diploma wage earners is stark. This article from Northeastern University published a year ago shows the scale of expected earnings. This salary advantage for degree holders adds up to serious money over a career.
2 important considerations for the undecided
Setting aside salary considerations, the value in a college education is two-fold:
1- Earning a degree keeps doors from closing.
A degree is not a passport to open all doors. Depending on the degree field and the industry, a degree won’t automatically guarantee a job or career. It is easier for companies to find at least nominally talented workers from the larger pool of degree holders, and even to pay them less because of the glut. But, if you have a degree and the labor market requires a degree, at least you haven’t locked the door to your options. Companies can buy more talented labor at a cheaper rate than ever. This makes it easy for companies to bar entry to those with no degree.
2- Going to college keeps your options open and provides exposure to ideas, interests, and perspectives you may not bump into otherwise.
This 2nd part of the college benefit equation should never end. No matter what you do about college or career, be a lifelong learner. For many, college is the introduction to subject material they’d see nowhere else.
Expose your trip wire
Most 1st through 12th graders don’t get a lot of opportunity to study neurophysiology. I suspect high school science labs rarely map genomes. Even advanced STEM students may not study the calculus of wing design, or aeronautical engineering for a spacecraft capable of lift off and re-entry. College can introduce these specialized fields of study and the career paths available. It can uncover a latent interest or undiscovered aptitude.
So that exposure may be the trip wire for your entire future. College may be the place where you discover what floats your particular boat. If the opportunity is available for you, avail yourself of it. Do so as inexpensively as possible. It may be a useful means to uncovering your talents and purpose.
Though “professional students” exist, for most, college isn’t the end. In at least the ways discussed, a college education is valuable as a means towards future benefits. As long as you can afford the cost, and there are some excellent guidelines to follow to determine those ratios (this is the best one I’ve found), a degree will be cheaper to buy now, than the expense you’ll incur by not having one.
It would be nice to have these reminders pop up like road signs from time to time
I’ve written about goals and goal setting in a previous post. It was tongue-in-cheek. My intention was to spark thought about the right questions to ask when setting a goal. But an ongoing conversation with my 17-r-old, college freshman, son has me thinking more about the topic of goals and the relation of plans to goals.
A Plan Is Not Busy Work, It Is Essential
My son is required to complete an Academic Plan for a class. He is on the bubble about what he wants to major in and so is dragging his heels about drafting a plan. He thinks there is no point in working on a plan, and putting it in writing, if it’s likely to change. So, he is thinking of this assignment as busy work. I am encouraging him to create the plan, finish the assignment, and realize that it is not carved in stone. My reasoning is this:
1- A goal represents an end that you have in mind.
2- A plan represents the means for achieving that end.
Unless a goal can be achieved with a single action, setting a goal and having no plan is the equivalent of not setting a goal. It may be a dream, or a wish, or perhaps a hope, but it’s not a proper goal.
A goal is something tangible, measurable, achievable (at least potentially), and exists during a window of opportunity (there is a timetable, or deadline for reaching it). A plan maps out how that is going to be done. What are the steps? What are the necessary resources? Are there pre-requisites, or contingencies I should be aware of?
One of the most important things to grasp in life, as young as possible, is the relation of plans to goals. That is to say, knowing the difference between means and ends. It is a rare person who keeps this concept in mind as the basic metric for decision making of all types.
Everyone Is Living For Some End
Everyone is living for some end. Even if they are unaware. Most people haven’t clearly defined it to themselves. This causes many to live very passively, in a state of hopeful disappointment (so as to not plagiarize Thoreau’s ”quiet desperation”, though they are functionally the same). People hope their lives will magically get better. Whatever better means. But they are living out a series of steps that feel predestined for them without much thought of their own. Succumbing to social and economic pressures, they live and act as if their own agency doesn’t have a lot to do with their own lives. To many, life is a lottery game, or a roulette wheel, and some people get lucky. They hope to be among the lucky.
But without a specific end in mine, clearly defined, and pursued for the value it represents, most are passively adrift. Their favorite words are ”If only…”. This even affects purchases. Or maybe it especially affects economic decisions of all sorts. People seem to be very confused about their relationship with money, thinking it is an end, when it is quite literally a means, and only a means. The result is they are either trying to accumulate money as an end in itself, or spending it for some feeling it cannot buy.
The Antidote to Passivity And Its Soul-Crushing Effects
The antidote to this hopeful disappointment or quiet desperation is to spend time thinking about what you really want. Identify your desired end. What ultimate goal do you have in mind? What would make life worth the effort to stay or get healthy, or the effort to establish better habits? Is there any worthwhile payoff for the hard work? What would make your life one you actually want to be living? Unless you define this ”most valuable end” and then live as if that end really is as valuable as you say it is, you’re cheating yourself. And you’re definitely not being authentic. And you’re forgetting how short this ride on the merry-go-round is.
Maybe you haven’t worked out your lifetime ”most valuable end”, supreme goal yet, but it certainly helps to start there and work backwards when planning. For now, you can start small to learn how to think of means and ends, and to plan sequentially so that you take the steps necessary to achieve the desired end, by taking action in the right order.
Today’s Academic Plan Yields Tomorrow’s Dream Life
I pointed out to my son that he is in an intermediate phase of life. He is wisely in a local community college that is cheap. In it, he can get all of his general college credits out of the way, keeping an open mind about a major. He will be ready to transfer those credits and his enrollment once he’s decided on a solid major. His immediate goal is 60 transferable credit hours in required courses. That’s it.
That intermediate goal is actually a means to a larger goal…a 4-yr degree at a university. And that, too, is an intermediate goal to the larger goal of a good, high-paying job. Which is also an intermediate goal to the ultimate goal of a life he wants to be living….to success defined in his own terms. I think I’ve helped him to see the relation of the academic plan he drafts today to the ultimate goal of his dream life.
Talking with him over the last couple of days made me want to share the conversation and hopefully theinsights with you. This framework of setting a clear goal, then making a plan on how to arrive, works in every part of life. It even makes life more fun, even if a little more challenging. It’s better to be proactive and work a plan towards a goal you actually want. The relation of plans to goals is what turns a dream into a possibility, and can transform it from a wish to reality. Certainly better to be armed with a plan towards a clear goal than to be a leaf on a stream, hoping things will magically get better, while passively floating towards what might just turn out to be a waste treatment plant.
