How to Find New Year’s Goals (Especially for Online Creators)

Hello and welcome to rewilding philosophy. Your letters for ^ekophilosophical health in the Anthropocene.

With the new year approaching, many take that as an invitation to reflect on their past year and to set goals for the upcoming year. What we don’t necessarily reflect on are our underlying assumptions that inform how we even come to choose those goals. This letter is for those who are in the midst of doing that and especially for those who write online.

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Our goals are a reflection of how we define success.

The problem with most goals

Success comes in two related but distinct flavors: the socio-economic status dominant in adult life and the micro-social status, coolness, or popularity dominant in adolescent life and youth culture. Today, for many who grew up in relatively affluent homes within the WEIRD world, social networks have made the status symbol for adults less about a management position in a big corporation or institution, but instead have made it again about coolness and popularity, displayed through the number of followers someone has. We are forever caught in high-school dynamics.

However, this isn't about social media or how to reform it; rather, it's about questioning these metrics and what to do instead.

While philosophers throughout the ages have not agreed on what life is about, many have agreed that life is not about material wealth and status.

What makes better goals

Socrates said that the importance of the examined life and the pursuit of virtue is more important than material wealth. He believed that living a good life was about seeking wisdom and understanding rather than accumulating wealth. His ideas are confirmed by some late scientific research, which suggests that wisdom is the best predictor of life satisfaction in both men and women and can offset the influence of negative age influences on life satisfaction. Wisdom actually has a greater influence on life satisfaction in older adulthood than health, socioeconomic status, financial situation, environment, or social engagement.

Epicurus argued that true happiness comes from the pursuit of simple pleasures, friendship, and intellectual contemplation, rather than material wealth. And the Stoics taught that virtue is the only true good and that external factors like wealth are indifferent.

In Ubuntu philosophy, which translates into "I am because we are” a good life is achieved through community, mutual care, and respect rather than individual economic success.

The reason why these philosophies are a smart choice to adapt, instead of the pursuit of status, is because status success is out of our control. Because just like the promise that we only need to go to school, work hard and climb the cooperate latter to become rich, the promise that we only need to be consistent, show up and do whatever it is to online game requires to gain status, turns out to be untrue. Both promises might hold some truth, but you might also die trying. Both are promises in which the fruit of our labour is out of our control.

Relying on these fruits then for a life well lived is frivolous and can have serious consequences. As Satish Kumar eloquently says:

“The divorce of art from life began when artists started to claim a higher status than artisans, separating themselves from their fellow craftsmen and women. When art became a status symbol, it became disconnected from ordinary life. Art grew apart, to be practiced only by those with “special” talents, and to be purchased only by those with great wealth. Thus art became one more item of consumption, a commodity to be bought and sold, an object for investment, and no longer a way of life practiced by everyone as an everyday activity.” Satish Kumar

This doesn’t mean that we should not try to achieve those things, if we are inclined to do so.

It just means that if we ground our goals on these things, then chances are that they won’t make our lives any better, even if we achieve them.

From an ^ekophilosophical perspective, which - similar to Ubuntu - stresses that individuals are defined by their relationships with others - human, more-than-human and our whole Mitwelt (with-world), well-being arises from community, cooperation, and mutual support rather than individual wealth accumulation or status.

It also acknowledges that true well-being can’t come without taking the whole into account. When we transcend the human-centered focus, a re-evaluation of success and the good life automatically emerges—material wealth and status won’t get us a good life if ecological well-being and the rights of more-than-human entities are disregarded.

Success then always already involves consideration of the ethical implications of our Mitwelt.

Playing the status game

Status then can’t be defined as success because it is based on external validation and transient metrics, whereas true success involves cultivating meaningful relationships, ethical living, and contributing to the well-being of the entire ecological and social community.

Moreover, status is also always a question of (in)equality. Status inequality, is just as harmful—and viscerally felt—as its economic counterpart. Status inequality harms people by distorting everyday interactions. It leads to increased tension, strategic friendships, conformity, social competitiveness, and antisocial behavior to undermine rivals. People judge ideas more by status than merit, weakening democratic ideals and solidarity. As Hanzi Freinacht says

“The long-term egalitarian goal must be, of course, to make such things as fashion and taste matter less for people’s social recognition and dignity.”

Through untying our definition of a good life to status, we can help make that happen.

From a relational perspective, seeking status might even just be a misguided endeavour for true connection with people.

For example, while I love pursuing wisdom, it also feels worthless if I don’t get to share it with others. It’s through the sharing and through the relationships that follow this that my work and life feel meaningful.

“What you really need are connections. But what you are told you need, in our culture, is stuff and a superior status, and in the gap between those two signals — from yourself and from society — depression and anxiety will grow as your real needs go unmet.” Johann Hari

Tying this longing for sharing to status and the number of followers is again frivolous. Because an ^ekophilosophical perspective, that is grounded in systems thinking (among others), also suggests that the world is fractal. A fractal is a complex structure where similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales. In fractal geometry, a part of the fractal replicates the structure of the whole. Similarly, in systems thinking, processes and structures at smaller scales often reflect those at larger scales. Fractal growth means that big things are just enlarged reflections of small things. Nothing is left without traces.

“Your own life is in relation to the life of the gods and the cycle of the cosmos itself. They are co-constitutive. The universe is here because of you and you are here because of it. It is ‘as above, so below’ made fractal.” Gordon White

So when we get to share our work with even one person, or one being, then we are already sharing our work with the world.

So for those new years’ resolutions, my prayer is to

pick non-status goals that resonate with deeper values—a commitment to truth, beauty and justice - for the whole Mitwelt. Instead of chasing fleeting symbols of success, focus on crafting works of substance, infused with making meaning, making sense and infusing soul.

Choose resilience over recognition, nurturing empathy, curiosity, and compassion. Not only to align with timeless wisdom but also to support a vision for a future that values a relational existence, where success is redefined as our capacity to enhance the lives and health of others.

Success is best defined by how we impact those around us and how we entangle ourselves in relation to the world. May these resolutions carry the wisdom of this entanglement and reflect the beauty of living in resonance with ourselves and our Mitwelt.