[elanius]

I’ve been thinking about this and am looking for a deeper understanding. Some activities people enjoy don’t have a concrete goal.

I remember a situation from my teenage years when a friend wanted to assemble an old PC just for fun. I declined because it didn’t make sense to me—I didn’t see any value in it.

Now, I realize that this attitude might be more valuable because it keeps you engaged even when there isn't a specific goal in sight.

[fuzzfactor]

>Make more incremental goals

This is along the lines of what I was thinking, especially with long-term projects.

Try to set achievable milestones each of which pick up where the previous one left off, even if the first milestone is not a very big fraction of the total progress needed.

>The advice you asked for: Start somewhere. Anywhere. Anything. Momentum is your friend.

This is so true too.

Incremental milestones need to be at a natural stopping point, in case rest or rejuvenation is needed, but need to be carefully handled so no real momentum is lost. The default should be action even after significant progress, or action continuing after a final goal is fully reached.

Can you think of a more feasible way to make actual progress on a goal that may be recognized as out-of-reach in a single lifetime?

What about a goal that may or may not be impossible in a lifetime? How would you know for sure, and whose lifetime would that apply to?

Other things may or may not be possible in a year, so you have to draw the line somewhere :)

[dexwiz]

Sounds like you need to cultivate curiosity. How to do that, I am not sure. It’s one of those inherent traits that’s often hard to change.

[elanius]

Curiosity is fine. The problem is that if you want to achieve something, you need to go through a lot of small steps that don't involve anything new. It's just the repetition of things you already know, and this is what I have started to hate.

However, it seems that some people can enjoy this, and I don't understand how they do it.