What is the goal of your life. Do you have other things you want to become succesfull, besides indie development. Do you feel nice in your life or could it be better.

The goal of my life is to be lying on my death bed when I'm old old old, and to be able to look back and not regret any of the things that I did, and to know that I gave everything I could to whatever it was I was involved with.

Having said that, life is not a single goal, but a multitude of them, and there is no final goal until you are dead, at which point, having a goal is pointless.

Originally posted by Mark Fassett
Having said that, life is not a single goal, but a multitude of them, and there is no final goal until you are dead, at which point, having a goal is pointless.

Quite true, since if you achieved your life goal in the middle of your life, will the rest be unmeaningful?

Enlightenment.

And, from Locust Abortion Technician: "Well son, the funny thing about regret is: it's better to regret something that you have done, than something that you haven't done."

Cas :)

I'm confused how this formula is supposed to work. It doesn't seem to offer any real solution. It just tells people to ignore harm being done to them, which doesn't make sense to me. There are multiple solutions to any problem of this nature, and the goal should be to minimize the resulting harm to yourself, your assets, and the innocent (how this list should be prioritized is another debate in itself). Examine your choices, attempt to predict the result, and choose the least harmful one. In some cases ignoring the problem might be for the best, especially if the person has little credit and people are not inclined to believe this slander. However if the person spreading lies is capable of greatly harming your reputation, and consequently your business and life, you should find another way to solve the problem. Analyze the situation and see where you come out ahead the most. Talking to the person might solve things. Going to court is possible. Showing the public proof that the lies are not true is possible. Allowing yourself to be hurt because it puts you on some higher moral ground isn't a very sound survival method.

As for life goals, I don't think you can ever run out. Even someone like Bill Gates can always strive to do more. You should also remember to enjoy what you have created, and maybe even turn that into another goal. For example, if I could afford a Ferrari, my next goal would be to start a race track, as well as soup up the car and hit new race times. Maybe even become a professional racer. There really is too much to explore and do in this world to reach a point where you can say "yep, I've done it all, now I'll sit here in the corner and twiddle my thumbs for the next 40 years".

Originally posted by gilzu
Quite true, since if you achieved your life goal in the middle of your life, will the rest be unmeaningful?

Can you just say "no" and it is that way then?

Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had very strong psychical problems years after they achieved their goal.

@johnson

Wow only a handfull of sentences and you drove it absolutly OT :)

Oh... and I choose to talk usually. The judgement about me from a person, who doesn't know me (for real), hasn't any value - as simple as that :)

And here is a 2/3OT-ish quote:
Sing, as if no one is listening.
Dance, as if no one is watching.
Love, as if no one had ever hurt you.

My goal is to help my friends and family.

I've found I prefer to help them directly rather than to earn money and give that to them instead. I've never been able to place a lot of value in money outside the need to pay bills, which makes it difficult for me to earn money unless someone I know on a personal level is in need of financial assistence.

I became a programmer mostly because I wanted to be someone who helps artists bring their dreams and talents alive on the computer. I saw the computer as this wonderfully powerful tool for creativity. Honestly, I've had little regard for customers themselves; working instead for my artists and musicians and no one else really. I'm someone who has always been happy working on other people's projects, and helping them see their dreams come to life.

And for me that is what gamedev is all about.

I have an incredibly strong need to create things to be happy. Right now it's games, but eventually I will move on to writing novels, and then writing/directing movies. Those are my goals right now. I'm not very good at (or very interested in) drawing or else I'd take that up too at one point. :) As far as music is concerned, I do play guitar but I'm not as passionate about it as I am about games/writing/movies.

Other than that I really like helping people, and should I become rich I will be able to donate money to various non-profit organizations that help people. I have to say that like Jake Stine I don't have a great personal desire for money. I know it won't make me happy, but money is necessary for financial security and to live comfortably. Money is also power, and with a lot of money you can change the world for the better.

My lifelong has been simply to avoid boredom. Whether I achieve this goal through programming, gaming, reading, teaching, working, or weightlifting, it's a goal that I strive to achieve on a daily basis. And just because what I did today achieves that goal, tomorrow's solution may be totally different. Variety IS the spice of life...

Create my dream games and then redo internet games with help of others which the creator company doesn't want to touch anymore because the game is too old or the company is no longer there! Mainly talking about master of orion 2 which was turn based and had tons of bugs and fairness issues but the company made a new master of orion game which had real action battles and all the complains of the older players were ignored. Ofcourse I will use different art and give the game a different name :) Then I plan to work with robots/alternative sources of energy.

To become the next Walt Disney, and to be the richest man on the planet!

Unfortunately i'm not getting very far with either, but, i'm still working on it ;-)

be paid to eat and sleep at will, thats my ultimate goal!

Just to bring this post back on topic:

how do you separate your "Goal of life" and your "Goal of these next few years"? do you know the difference?

My goal in life is to embrace feature creap, iteratively refine my source, and neutralize as many bugs as possible as I go.

My goal in game development is to make fun, inspirational, and thought provoking games.

The two seem to compliment eachother nicely, if you ask me.

gilzu-
Goals of the next few years (up to 10?) should probably be specific and objective, so that you can evaluate and reflect on your progress toward them. It's harder to evaluate or (depending on your religion) reflect on your progress toward life goals, because you never know how much time you have left to complete them. For this reason, I think people's life goals are (or should be) more process oriented types of things that they want to do or maintain throughout their lives. I think that good objective short term goals often lead to better process oriented kinds of goals for life. At least that's my hope.

Originally posted by Akura
be paid to eat and sleep at will, thats my ultimate goal!
Hehe, I'm not the only one who wants to be a cat :D