Hunter S. Thompson: Don’t Look for Goals, Look for a Way of Life

In 1958, a 20-year-old Hunter S. Thompson had a friend who was struggling to find meaning and purpose in life. Thompson wrote a letter to that friend (as featured in Shaun Usher’s Letters of Note), brilliantly articulating a lesson that can be derived from a wide range of philosophies, from Buddhism to existentialism.

That lesson is this: to live meaningfully, don’t chase fixed, pre-given goals; instead, seek to cultivate a particular way of life…

But what does this really mean? What way of life should I seek to cultivate? And why should I prioritize this over the achievement of goals?

After beginning with the disclaimer that “all advice can only be a product of the person who gives it,” Thompson explains:

Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.

So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?

The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all, or not with tangible goals, anyway… To put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. We do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. We strive to be ourselves.

But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t be firemen, bankers, or doctors — but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal…

Goals are static, but we are not. If we seek to add meaning or purpose to our lives simply by fixing our gaze on some shiny new objective or achievement, we risk nailing ourselves down, clipping our own wings, denying who we might become.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have goals; it just means the goal shouldn’t come first, Thompson continues:

In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires — including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be meaningful. A man has to be something; he has to matter.

As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his abilities function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his desires.

In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal), he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on his self-development), and he avoids the terror of seeing his goal wilt or lose its charm as he draws closer to it (rather than bending himself to meet the demands of that which he seeks, he has bent his goal to conform to his own abilities and desires).

In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he knows he will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important.

Rather than build his life around certain goals, Thompson urges his friend to consider the harmony between his abilities and his desires. What is he good at? What does he enjoy doing? What activities does he value?

And what activities do you value? Creating things? Helping people? Reading? Writing? Number crunching? Being outdoors? Being with animals? Singing? Dancing? Gardening? Playing sport? Traveling? Learning? Building? Painting? Interacting with others? Simplifying? Predicting? Designing? Fixing? Cooking? Challenging yourself?

Goals provide structure, an organizing framework; but, if we don’t enjoy or value the activities that come with completing those goals, then we’re unlikely to live very happy or fulfilling lives.

I might get some short-lived pleasure from ‘achieving’ a promotion, but if that promotion then takes me away from the activities I enjoy performing, the challenges I relish overcoming, the problems I value solving, then I should think carefully about what a promotion actually ‘achieves’ for me here.

If we want to keep our lives purposeful, meaningful, and enjoyable, our choices should be guided not by what convention might value — more money, status, power — but by how we actually want to spend our days. As Thompson puts it:

…it seems almost ridiculous to say that a man must function in a pattern of his own choosing; for to let another man define your own goals is to give up one of the most meaningful aspects of life — the definitive act of will which makes a man an individual.

A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance. So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life.

Perhaps one reaction to this line of thinking might be: but what if I don’t know how I want to live? What then? Thompson anticipates this very response from his friend:

But you say, ‘I don’t know where to look; I don’t know what to look for.’ And there’s the crux. Is it worth giving up what I have to look for something better? I don’t know — is it? Who can make that decision but you? But even by deciding to look, you go a long way toward making the choice.

I’m not trying to send you out ‘on the road’ in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that — no one has to do something they don’t want to do for the rest of their lives…

We might not have the answers straight away, we might not be sure of what we want to do; but that doesn’t mean we have to settle for whatever we’ve been allotted by circumstance.

After all, the first step to securing a better way of life is deciding to cultivate one…

In prioritizing the quality of processes over the pursuit of particular outcomes, Thompson’s advice is rooted in fertile philosophical ground, bringing to mind Nietzsche on what it means to find yourself, the Buddha on the danger of identity, Kierkegaard on living forwards, the Stoic dichotomy of control, Laurie Ann Paul on how to approach transformative decisions, Sartre on ‘bad faith’, Heidegger on authenticity, Iris Murdoch on unselfing, and Kieran Setiya on setting better resolutions.

What do you make of Thompson’s advice?

• Do you think meaning, purpose, and enjoyment are better secured through prioritizing the enjoyment of processes over the pursuit of fixed goals?
• What are the activities you value most in life?
• If you had a friend unsure of the way of life they wanted to cultivate, what would you advise them?

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