There are two ways you can choose to live your life – You can live a goal based life, or you can live a value based life.
A goal based life is having goals that are concrete, such as ‘I want to lose 5 kilograms’ or ‘I want to get a degree in this career.’ However, a value based life is more abstract, with goals such as ‘I want to be more compassionate’ or ‘I want to be kind to strangers.’
When you live a goal based life, you are eventually going to become miserable, because you are constantly chasing after something that you may never achieve. You will constantly think that ‘Oh, if I achieve this, then I’ll become happy or a better person.’ However, all you are doing is postponing your own happiness and never living in the present.
Whereas if you lead a value based life, you’re actually living in the present moment and bettering yourself as a person, rather than dumping your worth into whether or not you meet a goal. You are taking action now, instead of waiting for the future to meet a wavering goal that may not always be achievable.
I want to live a value based life, because my future seems so unclear to me right now. I don’t know what I’m going to do after school, let alone what I want the rest of my high school life to look like. By having and living a life that is propelled forward by values, I believe that your goals can be met, because you are focusing on your inner qualities and your own happiness in the present moment.