Elisabeth Oberzaucher
"Utopias and ideals are perfect for motivating us."
Despite all efforts, the ideals usually remain unequaled. This property makes them utopias, as already implied in the word itself: the term comes from ancient Greek and means "non-place". Thus, when a utopia is implemented, its existence ends as a utopia, since it became reality, that is, it was brought from the non-place into the world. However, this transformation is not the norm, but remains the exception. The tragedy of the lack of realizability can be attributed to different reasons: lack of willingness of the groups involved to sacrifice their personal interests, limited technical possibilities, etc.
While not achieving our ideals involves a great potential for frustration, humanity does not seem to be dissuaded from this permanent failure. The putting of unrealistic goals and formulating unattainable ideals seems to be something deeply human.
Motivator for development
Utopias and ideals are the ideal correspondences of the need to evolve, not content with the status quo, but to work to improve. They are THE driving motors for change. Change that is not only essential for survival on the biological level, but also prevents cultural and social stagnation.
But is it really necessary that the goals be unequaled? Would not we be better served if we were to formulate realistic goals instead of utopias? Is not the frustration of failing demotivating? Utopias seem to be unique as motivators.
Ideals: Eternal endeavor
Stagnation means regression. Both at the biological, social, economic, political and technological levels, we need to keep moving to keep the systems running. Compared to biology, we have a massive advantage in our decision-making behavior: whereas in evolution, change is only undirected by mutation, and these innovations must first prove themselves in the selection process, we can purposefully focus on changes for the better.
The motivation for change is therefore always to improve the status quo. Here, however, the individual goals may conflict with those of others or the community. Especially when dealing with resources. Although many people consider a more sustainable lifestyle desirable, they often fail. Traveling on foot is more exhausting than driving. That is why the will is often there, but the implementation is not there. This is the dark side of utopia: Since a comprehensive sustainable lifestyle is unworkable for most people, many develop an "already has a feeling of being dirty" feeling. Finally, to eliminate the permanent frustration, the goal is completely discarded. The solution lies in recognizing the many small steps: every decision counts and contributes to an approach to - or distance from - the goal.
Eternal delay
It is easy to make ends meet, but we often fail to implement it. Especially when it comes to things that we are reluctant to do, we are very good at finding reasons why we can not do them.
Postponing unloved activities is also called procrastination. This leads to deadline-controlled work, which is accompanied by an increased sense of stress, because working at the last minute also brings the uncertainty with whether the deadline can still be met. Despite the knowledge that neither the quality of work nor life satisfaction benefits from pushing things forward, procrastination is widespread. Are we incorrigible pushers, and can only break this pattern through iron-hard discipline? Or maybe we can turn that behavioral tendency into something that works well?
The philosopher John Perry described a way to use the tendency to postpone unpleasant things to constructively deal with things. He calls it a structured procrastination: we do not do things because they have a high priority - in the sense of importance or urgency - but because they give us a reason not to do other things that we really do not feel like doing.
set priorities
In order to meaningfully implement structured procrastination, one begins to create a hierarchy of tasks according to their urgency. Then you work off all the things that are not at the top of the list, and you feel like you are doing something good because you are not subject to the order of sequencing. The sequenced tasks are done reliably and well in this way. At the same time, however, the top-ranked things are pushed further and further. This means that in order to really use this method in a goal-oriented and profitable way, ideally one puts tasks at the top of the priority, which are actually not so urgent to do, or in their perfection can never be done. In this way, you can make yourself do many things very productively. The strength of this method lies in the fact that instead of idleness productive activities occur. This approach has the positive effect on our psyche that the feeling of indulging in something - by not doing the prioritized activities - is complemented by another impression: all the things that have been done in the context of procrastination leave the feeling to have done something. In this the pure procrastination differs from the structured one: whereas the former promotes only the bad conscience, because what has to be done is left behind, the latter is certainly perceived as rewarding.
Steps to ideals
Utopias fulfill a similar function as the top-ranked task. They can be used to motivate us to achieve successive goals. In that sense, the failure to reach a utopia, an ideal, is not necessarily always negative. Utopia keeps us moving, and ideally brings us closer to this goal when we proceed to structured procrastination.
A utopia is utopia only as long as it is unrivaled. So it is in their nature that as a desirable goal it influences our actions, but that it represents an ideal that we never arrive at. Non-achievement can be demotivating if, in perfectionist endeavor, only the complete achievement of goals is considered a success. Utilizing utopias and ideals according to the method of structured procrastination, they are perfectly suited to motivate us to reach intermediate goals. In that sense, utopias and ideals are perfectly suited to motivate us. By constantly occupying the top places of the to-do list as unattainable goals, we can devote ourselves fully to fulfilling the stratified goals. So an over-ambitious goal is, in fact, only too high if we see its only function in being fulfilled as well. But if we recognize that it also has a motivating function, a supposedly too ambitious goal is just high enough.
Success & failure
How we define failure and success often seems completely out of thin air. This is particularly evident at sporting events such as the recent Olympic Games. Only the first three places count as successes, a fourth place is already a failure. For the individual participants, however, it can already be a huge success, at all to be present at the games, or, if it is a favorite, even a silver medal can be perceived as a failure.
How we judge what has been achieved does not depend on objective standards, but on our expectations. This subjective assessment of successes and failures also determines whether utopias are conducive to our existence or whether the permanent failure to achieve utopia leads to such frustration that we no longer even try.
The art of using utopias as optimally as possible for motivation seems to lie in not only using them to achieve intermediate goals, but also celebrating these successes as such. The current women's popularity illustrated the light and dark sides of the utopia: The catalog of demands includes individual ambitious goals, which are referred to as utopian and are called by some as a reason why they do not sign it. However, the initiators point out that one of the reasons why the goals are so high is that a discussion actually takes place.
Enlightened access to utopias is an attempt to get as close as possible to them. A dismissal of her as unreachable leads to inaction and condemned to failure. Although taking an Olympiad may not end in victory, if you do not participate in the games, you've already lost.
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