Goal
Today, I discuss why you must and how you can eliminate vagueness in your life.
Table of Contents
- What Is Vagueness?
- Why Do We Embrace Vagueness In Our Lives?
- How Do You Remove Vagueness From Your Life?
- You Are Capable Of Controlling Your Destiny
What Is Vagueness?
A vague life is a terrifying life full of broken promises, undefined goals, and shifting standards. You will never be sure of what tomorrow can, should, or will bring without anything foundational.
“I can’t be friends with a man who blows hot and cold with the same breath.” – Aesop, Aesop’s Fables
Vagueness is the “lack of certainty or distinctness.”
Your life is vague when you lack clear goals, virtues, and standards. This fog creates doubt, fear, and uncertainty because you don’t fully grasp who you should be and where you should be going.
For example, lacking daily, weekly, and life goals will negatively affect your wellbeing. Without goals, you cannot answer questions such as where am I going? Why should I pursue this action? Who do I wish to be? What purpose does my life serve? Vagueness ensures your present actions cannot contribute to a tomorrow you haven’t defined.
Why Do We Embrace Vagueness In Our Lives?
Having an undefined life justifies your laziness. If you don’t have goals, then you can’t be disappointed by your lack of accomplishments.
Firstly, reality is harsh: one day you will die, the world is too complicated for you to understand fully, you can’t save your dying freedoms, and so on. Thus, the vaguer we make the brutalities of life, the less defined and terrifying they are.
Secondly, vagueness arises with progression. As we improve in skills or expand our opportunities, we will struggle to track what is, has been, and can be. This inability to comprehend our progress contributes to vagueness. Further, if we are tired of, scared by, or uninspired by our growth, we may embrace this fog to stall our progress.
Lastly, vagueness comes from resentful, manipulative people. Collectivists thrive in fog. Clear values, standards, and virtues reveal collectivists’ evil nature. Thus, collectivists will introduce doublespeak, personal attacks, and guilt to blind you to their schemes.
How Do You Remove Vagueness From Your Life?
Collectivists prefer an ill-defined life void of personal responsibility. This vagueness ensures they accomplish nothing positive with their lives.
“People who have nothing much in mind for next week speak instead about the next century or millennium.” – George F. Will
Part of removing vagueness involves understanding virtue. Virtues are an objective set of values that give us a clear view of what is and is not optimal. The clearer you can define what you should do, the better you can act.
For example, let’s say you want to buy an expensive item. If you wrap yourself in vagueness, you’ll provide excuses for spending your money, such as arguing, “I deserve this.” However, if you embrace the virtue of frugality, you can look at your budget to objectively define whether the purchase is necessary. Further, if you are loyal to yourself, you will abstain from wasting money you can invest in your future.
Additionally, ignoring culture is a necessity. The media will always lie. Entertainment is designed to demoralize you. The mob will always threaten you. Thus, you must refuse to entertain collectivists’ doublespeak and contradictions. Their words, ideas, and arguments will smother you in the vagueness of contradictory standards, immorality, and entitlement.
Therefore, turn off the news. Avoid socialists who want to “eat the rich” and racists peddling “anti-racist” nonsense. Collectivists want your resources by making you feel guilt, fear, and uncertainty. Avoid them, and you will live with less fog.
The last two strategies, tracking your actions and reflecting on your death, require more detail.
Track Your Actions For Later Reflection
Understanding what you’ve done and should be doing will give your present actions clarity.
Tracking your actions clearly defines your past, present, and future.
Understanding your past reveals what does and does not work. Tracking your present reduces wasted time. Having goals for the future gives you something to pursue.
Set daily times to reflect on past behavior and present endeavors. Set weekly times to reflect on whether your current actions are helping you accomplish your long-term and life goals.
Self-reflection is the key to removing vagueness from your life. With accurate records of your behaviors, you have a foundation to make improvements without distraction.
Memento Mori – Reflect On Death And Your Mortality
One day you will die. Keep this reality close to your heart, and you won’t tolerate vagueness.
“Believing the lie that time will heal all wounds is just a nice way of saying that time deadens us.” – Jonathan Nolan
Vagueness arises from a fear of reality. Of course, you will die. Distracting yourself with games, porn, and drugs will not change this. Yes, you are wasting your time. Consuming popular culture will not make your personal, physical, and creative battles any easier. And yes, our institutions are broken and corrupt. Surrounding yourself with memes will not liberate the world.
Accept you are human. Accept you do not have the power to make the world a just place. Accept you will never accomplish every goal you set for yourself. Accept you will die, and you can lift the fear from your mind. When you remove the fear, you may get to work.
For example, if you want to own a business, you have to face your death’s reality. You are running out of time. Thus, you need to work earnestly to gather the supplies, resources, and skills you need to run your business. Set goals, ask questions, explore what happens when you fail.
Vagueness will not save you. Embrace the harshness of the world with a clear mind.
You Are Capable Of Controlling Your Destiny
You are an individual. You must believe in yourself. Otherwise, you will forfeit the only life you have.
“Spiritual activity, education, civilization, culture, the idea are all vague, indefinite concepts, under the banner of which it is quite convenient to use words that have a still less clear meaning and therefore can easily be plugged into any theory.” – Leo Tolstoy
As with all individual flaws, vagueness comes from personal weakness. You’ll struggle to define what is and is not possible as you improve. Never fret. Nothing is perfect. Not even you.
However, you have to work. You must be honest. Find the places in your life where there aren’t defined terms and define them. Go where you feel the most fear or the greatest doubts. These are the areas you are capable of clarifying.
Reading List
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck – There is power in reduction. Mark Manson explains how reducing your cares can improve your life.
Actionables
- Do you feel your life is vague? In what way? Are your goals poorly defined or do you fail to keep track of your day? What can you do to change that?
- How does vagueness make you feel? Does not having set standards help you feel better? Or, are your nervous? Anxious?
- Is there anyone in your life who embraces vagueness? For example, do you know someone who prefers the undefined, biased reporting from the media instead of nuanced coverage from both sides? What do you think of this person? Do they seem to live a happy, virtuous life?
Please remember that it’s important to do the actionables. You’re not on this earth to simply read but to do. To become an individual, you must act more than you consume.
*Image credit to Unsplash.
