A Goat’s Guide to Living in the Moment
These little friends can teach us a thing or two about life
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A Goat’s Guide to Living in the Moment
The past haunts and the future intimidates.
What went wrong? What might go wrong?
“Am I going the right way? What is the optimal move? I don’t know what to do.”
No time for the lived experience. You’re not as happy as you could be, because you don’t have the presence to appreciate what’s going right .
Don’t leave any happiness on the table to rot .
Pick it up! Take it. Sink your teeth into it — it’s rightfully yours.
This unorthodox advice from my boss during a career chat helped me — it melted away my fears and anxieties about the future.
And I hope it can help you too.
The animal with the answer to anxiety
I was speaking to Fatima about career satisfaction.
I was unsure where to go, what to do, and whether what I’d done up until this point was even a good idea at all. She has a very nonchalent approach to advice, and slides advice under your door rather than knocking it down.
She looked at me, kind of perplexed and said:
Dude…just be like a goat — they live in the present.
— Fatima Hammad
She’s going to hate me for writing this.
But I thought about goats for a while — and she was actually right.
they are the antithesis of just going about their life
they don’t worry about their last move, or plan too far ahead
they don’t stress about what’s to come, who likes and dislikes them or if things might go wrong
We shouldn’t get rid of all our goals and just live to eat, shit and walk around, of course. I’m not proposing we live a life without “meaning” per se.
But there’s a thing or two we can take from their playbook. The way they galavant around, the way they’re always relaxed and pleasant, not worrying about the past or the future.
They just…are. And sometimes, we should just…be. We forget that we’re just animals at the end of the day.
Alarm clocks, artificial lights, cars, readily available food — it all clouds our view of what the world really is. An animal kingdom. And at the end of the day, we’re just eating, shitting and walking around too.
We don’t need to overcomplicate it.
So the instruction is to live like a goat, and be present — but how?
To live in the moment — do this
The best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.
— Albert Einstein
We’re told to be proactive all the time, but there’s also place for living reactively.
Taking a walk with no mission
Walking over to the juice shop because you feel like one
Changing the industry you work in if things have gotten stagnant
Routines, discpline and planning is all great — they’ve actually changed my life — but we have to allow for spontaneity too. As cliche and morbid as it might seem, that could be your last walk or your last juice.
And frankly, there is no future — it’s just the present moment. The future only exists as the present moment when you’re in it. You can’t plan it, for it doesn’t exist yet.
You will experience a richer life by listening to your soul’s desires in the moment.
Yes you should have short term goals, a five-year plan and a 10-year plan — but the key is to be willing to scrunch it up and throw it away if need be.
Life is boring if it’s too rigid — if you plan and worry too much.
Not everything you do in your life is going to contribute to some greater purpose — sometime you can just enjoy what it is you want, and learn the lessons each experience has to teach you.
Become fluid
As the goat walks around, not tied to any obligation, it’s like a fluid that conforms to the shape of any container it’s placed in.
Half the challenge in life is being willing to adapt.
For example, my friend Zander is leaving his Engineering job to become a Doctor — but in the interim he’s going to work for an Adventure Group.
Now that’s living like a goat!
No stress about one thing detracting from the other, no regret, no exessive planning. Just pure decisions that satiate the passions in his soul.
He had a goal to be an Engineer, and he achieved it. But maybe it wasn’t what he thought it’d be — so he was willing to scrunch it up and try again. And in the meantime, he’ll do something that he knows he loves.
And maybe he’ll scrap the plans to be a Doctor — you never know — that’s the beauty of the future. That’s the wonder and the magic that living like a goat will bring.
You walk over the hill and there might be more green grass to munch on — or there might be less — who knows?
You just have to walk over there to find out.
We expect to be placed into a rectangular container, but all of a sudden you’re thrown into a circular one. This happens often and you need to be able to adapt. It’s not about your capability to adapt, but you’re willingness to.
If you don’t mind unexpected turns — you’ll thrive in life. Because one thing’s for sure, it’s not going to go the way you expect.
You’re basically opening doors all the time, and each door leads to a completely randomly generated room with more doors in it. If you’re scared of what might be in the room, you’ll be stuck at the first door forever. And if you resist what you find in the room, you’ll have a negative mindset forever.
But if you open the door with curiosity and wonder — you will live a spiritually rich and genuinely happy life.
The goat doesn’t resist the events of the day and it doesn’t fear any room. It tries to find some green grass, and if it isn’t there — it tries and tries again.
Thank you for reading.
I’m just sharing my lessons learned while building my Mental Fortress - an impenetrable and stable mind.
If you found it helpful, that’s great. I figured, why not share it with the world as I crystallise it.
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Sincerely,
Eren
Excellent post as always is Eren. But my problem with living like a goat advice is that goats only live ten years. We live three scores and ten. We will be around for a much longer time to enjoy or regret the consequences of our actions. Therefore, a little bit of anxiety today may be good for us in the long run.