On pursuing things

By Venkatesh Rao:

You’re more likely to get what you vaguely and subconsciously want than things you try to pursue with explicit targeting and pumped-up motivation. Focus inevitably wavers. Motivation eventually slumps. But subconscious, barely acknowledged dispositions and tendencies tend to drive steady compounding effort over years, through peaks and troughs, and automatically account for energy constraints and take advantage of defocused peripheral vision.

Of course, this is no real guarantee that you’ll like what you get. Whether you pursue explicitly or vaguely, be careful what you wish for.