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Great article, Eric.

Also, I love the exclamation mark above Calvin's head in the second panel.

Confused about a rational but ethical way to find your life’s purpose? What your 5 year goals are?

Read Clayton Christensen’s How Will You Measure Your Life.

Short on time? Just watch from 7:50-11:34 here:

Buy the book here.

5 hugs a day makes you a happier person. We often pick the easy, lazy choice but it’s the challenges in life that bring joy.

Summary of the book here.

Buy the book here.

It's worth reading the whole article: http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/11/what-is-the-good-life/

The sum total of Clay's advice is that we all seek tangible, immediate evidence of achievement.  He suggests that this impulse produces people who are poor judges of how their day to day decisions then add up or detract from long term results.

In essence, we are not clear on how to invest our time and intelligence in an intentional way to achieve desired long-term gains.

Clay also surmises that this thinking process is a failure of our limited minds: we tend to aggregate value and apply hierarchical relativism regarding our results in comparison to others, which often produces sad consequences for our own personal meaning in life.

He also says, "God doesn't aggregate above the level of individuals..." In other words, life is not a beauty contest of relative standing, but one of intrinsic merits and demerits that you have accomplished with your limited time here.

Yes, it's really important to succeed at what your working at, but be careful how you measure and value that success or failure.