Accomplishment

Sisyphus is a famous figure from Greek mythology, a human punished by Zeus because he had cheated death twice. His punishment was to roll a heavy boulder uphill for eternity.
The myth is referenced nowadays when speaking about modern life, especially the society “rat race” that everyone must endure to earn a living: if you want to rest, the boulder simply rolls back down and you must start over from an earlier point, so you can’t really rest.

It’s my understanding that the myth is viewed negatively: first, because the story is literally a punishment, and second, because most people don’t seem to want a life where you cannot rest.

However, I can’t help but think that’s not necessarily the case. I firmly believe humans need to accomplish things to have a meaningful life.

Accomplishment is, for me, the next step after Hope: when you accept that you must evolve, you should feel a strong urge to accomplish yourself.

The process should be hard. You should push your mind and body to their limits; it’s the only way to evolve.

You should fear taking a step back, not that you should never do it : you must question the move: will stepping back allow me to go further afterwards?

You should clearly see, as I hope Sisyphus did, the process:

• evolve to be better
• find meaning so life becomes bearable
• each step should be incremental
• there is no cheating, no easy way around

I’m not saying everything should be an accomplishment, though. Everyone has limited energy they can spend. But you should spend most of your energy towards accomplishing your goals.

Clearly, there is a bit of Sisyphus in every human, and I think this part should be embraced and seen as positive.