Arbitrary Goals

Goals that obviously that are obviously arbitrary are the easiest to change, whereas those that are involved with basic values and philosophy of life are hardest to change. If I set a goal of forty sit-ups a day for this week, that number obviously was selected for what I thought to be my own good, a number that would gradually increase my strength and improve my health, as well as perhaps giving me satisfaction in attaining it. If I cannot nearly achieve that goal and feel helpless to do better -- which makes me sad --or if I achieve the forty sit-ups only with painful effort, then the goal is clearly a poor choice; instead, the goal chosen for my own good is bad for me. Of course I might argue to myself that the gain in strength is more important than the pain of sadness. But if I at least get this argument into the open, and if I recognize that goals are intellectual tools, and in this case the purpose of the goal is my own welfare, then I'm likely to revise the sit-up goal downwards.

Another example of how one arbitrarily chooses a goal--and with it the prospects of failure and sadness--is in a game such as tennis. As a sports psychologist says,

If you compete with players of ability equal to yours, you are setting yourself up for disappointment about fifty percent of the time. If you compete with players who are more capable than yourself, you set yourself up for an even greater percentage of unsatisfactory games. If you seek out less skilled competitors, you could win all the time, but you wouldn't feel like a winner.3

If you are willing to struggle a bit for wisdom, alone or with a therapist, you should find it relatively easy to improve your choice of arbitrary goals of this sort, and hence reduce negative self-comparisons and sadness.

Let's work out a specific exercise, for convenience returning to Nancy in Chapter 12 who told herself "I'm a bad mother." And let's say that for one reason and another, Nancy is not convinced by the analysis of her numerator given there. And she now says, "Eleanor is the kind of mother I should be".

You respond to Nancy as follows: "Is Eleanor an average mother? Does she have an outside job or do volunteer work? "

Nancy: "She devotes herself entirely to her children".

You: "Is that ordinary behavior?"

Nancy: "No, she's an unusually good mother, the best one I know."

You: " Why do you compare yourself to her?"

Nancy: "Because I should be as good as I can be, and she shows how good a mother can be."

(Notice how skilled a depressive like Nancy can be in making her comparisons seem logical.)

You: "Does Eleanor bring home a paycheck the way you do? Does she serve as president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving as you do? Does she do anything else besides be a mother?"

Nancy: "That's enough".

You; "Maybe it's enough for her, but what's that got to do with you? Remember, you said you are a bad mother, not less devoted a mother than Eleanor -- if that is good for the kids, anyway. To whom is it reasonable to compare yourself as a mother? "

After considerable more argumentation, Nancy sees the point. (We assume so for brevity; the fact is that she might out-logic anyone on this point.) And when she does see that Eleanor is not an appropriate comparison, and she truly concedes the point, her denominator will become less harsh and her Mood Ratio will become more Rosy.

Uninvited thought Causal Event Self-comparison "I'm a bad mother". Note from I should be like Eleanor A. son's teacher Analysis Response Denominator: Is Eleanor the appropriate person with whom I should compare myself? . . . . Eleanor is atypical.

Goals That Are Not Arbitrary

Other goals are less arbitrary and hence more complex. If I set a goal of writing five pages of this book each day, it is obvious that that number was chosen relative to what I think I can do, and relative to what I have done in the past. But I might say to myself that I ought to set the goal so as to get the maximum output from my productive capacities. If I think that way, deeper values--a matter to which we shall come shortly--as well as my psychological history are then also involved. This is more complex and harder to deal with than the number of sit-ups that I do.

The person who never clearly chooses a single direction, or decides on an achievement goal, has another sort of goal-setting problem. As Montaigne said: "No wind favors him who has no destined port".(4) That sometimes describes me in my occupation. (The rest of this paragraph and the next one were written in 1977, and is less true as of 1989). I start with the value that a person should contribute to society what he can, and with the belief that I have some talent (for research and writing) that should be harnessed to make a noticeable social contribution. But beyond this I have no well-defined goal. And I always feel that what I do is not enough, not sufficiently good. I find fault with most or all the pieces of work I've done, even those that I believe are technically excellent, because they have not produced the social changes I hoped they might, or because they have not started more than a few people thinking in new ways, or because they did not persuade many of my colleagues. If I can't find anything wrong with the idea or the research itself, I criticize myself for having failed appear too unconventional, or I did not write it simply enough (or complexly enough), or I did not make it seem more interesting and palatable to others, or I did not concentrate enough on it and spend enough extra time presenting new versions of it and giving talks and writing letters and buttonholing people, and so on and so on.