Play hard, not work hard || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)

Question: Do goals always limit us, or can they be helpful as well?

Acharya Prashant: The method is to always ask, “Whose goals?” You have done the exercise named, ‘Who am I?’ You have done the exercise called, ‘I in identity’. You ask, “Do goals always limit us?” Do goals exist in a vacuum? Or are they always somebody’s goals? Is a goal something that is devoid of a context? Does it hang on a tree? Does it rain from the clouds? Or is it always something attached to something?

Listener: Attached.

AP: A goal is always coming from something. It is always belonging to somebody. The moment you ask, “Are goals important?” You must always ask, “Whose goals? Who is the one who is making the target?” Is there a goal without a goal oriented mind? Do goals float about in thin air? Are they something hanging in a vacuum? The moment you say ‘goal’ you are talking of a mind. A mind having a particular target.

Now, you can take it forward. From where does the mind get that target?

(Silence)