(1) SENSE OF DIRECTION:

The advertising executive "straightened himself out" and regained his confidence within a short time, once he saw clearly that for several years he had been motivated by strong personal goals which he wanted to attain, in­cluding securing his present position. These goals, which were important to him, kept him on the track. However, once he got the promotion, he ceased to think in terms of what he wanted, but in terms of what others expected of him, or whether he was living up to other people's goals and standards. He was like the skipper of a ship who had relinquished his hold upon the wheel, and hoped that he would drift in the right direction. He was like a mountain climber, who as long as he looked upward to the peak he wished to scale, felt and acted courageously and boldly. But when he got to the top, he felt there was nowhere else to go, and began to look down, and became afraid. He was now on the defensive, defending his present position, rather than acting like a goal-striver and going on the offensive to attain his goal. He regained control when he set himself new goals and began to think in terms of, "What do I want out of this job? What do I want to achieve? Where do I want to go?"
"Functionally, a man is somewhat like a bicycle," I told him. "A bicycle maintains its poise and equilibrium only so long as it is going forward towards something. You have a good bicycle. Your trouble is you are trying to maintain your balance sitting still, with no place to go. It's no wonder you feel shaky."
We are engineered as goal-seeking mechanisms. We are built that way. When we have no personal goal which we are interested in and which "means something" to us, we are apt to "go around in circles," feel "lost" and find life itself "aimless," and "purposeless." We are built to con­quer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve. People who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they themselves have no personal goals which are worthwhile.
Prescription: Get yourself a goal worth working for. Better still, get yourself a project. Decide what you want out of a situation. Always have something ahead of you to "look forward to"—to work for and hope for. Look forward, not backward. Develop what one of the auto­mobile manufacturers calls "the forward look." Develop a "nostalgia for the future" instead of for the past. The "forward look" and a "nostalgia for the future" can keep you youthful. Even your body doesn't function well when you stop being a goal-striver and "have nothing to look forward to." This is the reason that very often when a man retires, he dies shortly thereafter. When you're not goal-striving, not looking forward, you're not really "liv­ing." In addition to your purely personal goals, have at least one impersonal goal—or "cause"--which you can identify yourself with. Get interested in some project to help your fellow man—not out of a sense of duty, but because you want to.