Mar 14 • Finisher Blog
The Tyranny of Purpose
“The oppressive idea that the activities with which we fill our days must be leading up to something, to some final and finished state of having arrived at our destination in life, if they’re to be worth doing in the first place,” according to Oliver Burkeman, is Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s concept of the tyranny of purpose. We’ve talked about this before with goalodicy, where you let unthinking devotion to your goals crowd out common sense and actually keep you from getting things done.
When we are very busy and stressed, we tend to think every moment of our lives needs to lead to productive action, that we have no time to take for friends or family or rest. Instead of cooking a healthy meal, we get takeout. Instead of spending some time walking outside enjoying the sunlight with our favorite dog, we rush through a walk dragging her along while making phone calls and answering emails. If we aren’t devoting every second to the grind, does what we’re doing even matter? Of course it does. If we don’t take care of our health and well-being, we won’t be able to accomplish as much. And, more importantly, we won’t have an enjoyable life filled with even more important things than blindly progressing through our to-do lists.
Where has the tyranny of progress shown up for you and how do you combat it? Please let us know in the comments below. If you’d like more support in finishing projects, find me on https://thefinisher.org/ for one on one assistance!
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The Tyranny of Purpose
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