The Human Need For A Project
Direction, Motion and Milestones
Humans need projects. We need something to do, something to look forward to, something to strive for. We are wired for this. Genes that prioritized planning, anticipating, and having a goal survived evolutionary forces; those who did not, perished.
For most of human history, the project was to survive. Hunger, wars, disease: death was everywhere. Unfortunately, survival is still not guaranteed for much of the world, and even in wealthy countries, many live close to that edge. As societies became safer and more abundant for some, the human drive for “what’s next” began to shift.
Once daily survival is no longer in question, the obvious next project is to thrive. And most do so via accumulating wealth, experiences, pleasures, and options. Accumulation becomes the project, and the means of accumulation (work) becomes too important to let go. Yet after a while, many realize that once life is comfortable, accumulating in anticipation of future pleasure and/or avoidance of pain doesn’t feel like a worthy project. This hollowness is the signal that our minds are searching for a new kind of pursuit.
This is where the wiring gets restless. Our brains evolved for forward motion, for envisioning a future state, breaking it into steps, and moving toward it. When that system has nothing to latch onto, it starts to fray. People feel bored, anxious, or vaguely unmoored, even if life looks comfortable from the outside. Retirement, career breaks, and "having it all" can trigger this in surprising ways.
The answer is not to cling to the old survival-accumulation ladder but to step out of the box. Choose some new projects that can give structure, feedback, and meaning. These projects do not have to be grand. They can be creative, physical, intellectual, or relational. What matters is that they point somewhere beyond mere comfort, toward mastery, contribution, or curiosity.
I picked focus on mental and physical health as my project recently. But a lack of progress towards my project has made me feeling immensely frustrated. Most of my days are unstructured right now. It does not help that it is summer break, so the whole family is at home and it is hard to carve out time to “do” something alone. Summer break is almost over, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but the experience left me wondering: is there truly no escape from our programming, or can we ever live well without projects?