# 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.
What would it look like fixed? Probably not like this…(Dreamstime Image: licensed to the author)
# 60 on my, 99 Life Tips – A List is: You cannot solve any problem without having a clear picture of the solution in mind. Ask, ”what would it look like fixed?” borrowed from David Allen.
Because this is one of my favorite questions, and has been so life-changing for me, I secured the domain whatwoulditlooklikefixed.com a few years ago, where I will eventually build out a self-help site based around this idea. I’m happy to share it here with you.
I was introduced to the concept in David Allen’s book: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. I highly recommend the book if you want to dive deeper into the whole system of personal productivity and time management Allen espouses.
Answering what would it look like fixed has become the starting point of my entire problem-solving heuristic.
The premise is simple. A problem arises. You want to fix it. So far, so good…
But fixing problems requires answers to two questions:
1- What is the true problem? (This is a book in its own right)
2- What would absence of the problem look like, or conversely, what would it look like fixed?
Until you answer these two questions problems manifest will remain problems unsolved
How often have you set out to fix a problem without first discovering what was really bothering you, or having a definite, clear idea of what needed to happen to not feel bothered by it anymore? If you’ve done this, you know how frustrating it can be to multiply effort using the wrong means for the wrong ends with no clear plan. (Which probably describes the typical workday of millions of people). And maybe this too accurately describes normal life for a lot of people as well.
So, since you certainly want to avoid adding frustration to the feelings you already have about your issue. Do the hard work, the meaningful work, up front. The hard work is actually mental, involving thinking and imagination. You’re creating a world where your problem doesn’t exist. In this world, you vanquished the burden. It’s gone. Exterminated. Kaput.
This picture gives you both a target state to achieve and the inspiration to achieve it. Don’t worry yet on what will have to happen to make this vision come to pass. That’s another part of the problem-solving process. Without a clearly defined destination, further steps in the process are tantamount to walking in circles.
From Concept to Concrete
This is how, precisely how, all the man-made reality that you look around you and see, gets from concept to concrete. Things go from abstract idea to tangible reality by answering some variation of this one question.
What would it look like fixed?
If you want to solve a problem and don’t have this idea clearly in mind, how will you know when you’re done? How will you gauge success at eliminating the problem. Do you see the dilemma? Unless you can clearly state, in specific language, ”This problem will be fixed when ______________.” happens, all efforts will amount to pushing in the clutch on a car, stomping the accelerator, and redlining the engine in a screaming cloud of smoke and fury, but the car goes nowhere.
Instead, do the hard work up front. Get a clear picture of exactly what fixed would look like, then use the appropriate means to reach that desired end. (A subject for another day).
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.
