Goooooaaaaaaaal!
Translated from the French original — read it here.
Aix-en-Provence, 27 October 2016
I recently finished a book I liked a lot, and which had an almost immediate effect on me: "The One Thing" (in French here) .
The book offers some advice on how to go about making a success of your life. It all rests on the idea of finding your "one thing" — and once you've found it, getting to work on reaching that objective. It can be anything: becoming a serious guitarist, buying a house, building a career, and so on...
The idea, of course, is to be patient, because depending on the goal things can take a while to fall into place. That's where the author uses the effective image of dominoes: broadly, over the short, medium or long term, all our actions should be considered and pointed towards reaching our "one thing"... Every stage along the way, every action we take each day of our lives, should knock over a domino, which then topples the next one we have to tackle, and so on, until the last one falls — our ultimate objective, the thing that stands for our goal.
Put like that, it can sound like stating the obvious.... but you really do get carried along by this book, by the authors' enthusiasm. And besides:
"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds.... they reveal to us only the best of their thoughts" [Descartes].
In the end it usually gives us something, and I felt that as the pages went by. Reading this book let me refocus on the notion of a goal — and on my goals in particular, of course, on my objectives. In life that seems to be what matters most, but we're often swept up in the spiral of daily routine and in the mirages of consumer society, which want us to believe that what we want is a new phone (one that doesn't explode), or a virtual-reality headset (cupboards full of the stuff)... Sometimes you need to step back and really think about what you actually want, and some days that's harder than others. A worked example from today, a conversation between my conscience and me in the FNAC:
- Me: Oh... I'm going to try the "Sennheiser Optimum whatsit..." headphones, they're rather nice
- My conscience: hmmm are you sure?
- Me: yes yes. wow, great sound... and anyway my earphones are rubbish and I can feel they're about to give up on me....
- My conscience: Didier... What is your goal, your One Thing
- Me: To keep travelling...
- My conscience : and for that you need?
- Me: To stay financially independent for as long as possible
My conscience: ....
Me: yeees , but the sound is great and I do like listening to music, and besides, I look great in them :-D (they put mirrors right in front of the headphones... they're good....)
My conscience: ....
"People think life is short.. not at all... Life is long, especially if you make the wrong decisions" [Chris Rock]
Chris Rock wasn't talking about buying headphones (judge for yourself here :-D ) . But we're still on the same idea of priorities and of the meaning to give each of our actions.
Once you know what you want, it isn't enough to make one or two decisions and assume everything will run smoothly... life is more a marathon than a 100 metres, and staying on the paths that take us where we want to arrive takes endurance.... there are plenty of mirages along the way and they're terribly tempting. This book gives us a few recipes for trying to hold on.
The idea I take away in the end is this: you have to keep your life objective constantly in mind — what Gary Keller and Jay Papasan call "The One Thing". Not forgetting our goals will help us bear the sacrifices, and will help make the road almost as enjoyable as the arrival :-) .