Many of the goals that people pursue have less to do with the pursuit itself than with the pursuit as a means of externalizing a self-perception and aligning their own idealized self with the self defined and perceived by the world. Goals then become the sublimation of a desire not only to be seen and valued but to see and value oneself.
This human behavior varies widely, ranging from those for whom these impulses might be necessary—perhaps even healthy—to others for whom these pursuits are completely superfluous. But there is a certain peace of mind in finally having achieved an internal coherence and come to the realization that measuring your value against an external outcome undermines you from the outset because it is impossible to align your opinion in every respect with that of the world.
But if people realize that they already occupy the goal state used to justify all their senseless striving for validation, the action itself becomes light and free because essentially superfluous and no longer dependent on outcomes. They might also realize that, for many reasons, the human species is in a constant state of agitation and desire sublimated through various domains nominally dedicated to their observable, practical purposes, but at least partly pursued for their endless promise that they offer a way to align internal and external reality for the people doing the pursuing.
People do things, ultimately, for other reasons than those of the doing; once they no longer have those reasons, the doing can become freer and lighter rather than subject to a desire enslaved to an inner taskmaster. But these are realizations and not descriptions, and much of the hurly-burly of the world is not light or free because many people implicitly carry the burden of self-rejection.
Yet beneath these drives for validation and self-affirmation is the even more basic drive to survive and reproduce, often taking the form of increasing sexual opportunity by pursuing its proxies or choosing environments with favorable reproductive outcomes. Even after examining choices made at first in conscious pursuit of noble or high-minded ideals, or simply as the expression of a preference, the individual might still attribute these choices to a desire to be or be perceived in a certain way, recognizing insecurity or a desire for validation or a wish to arrive at an idealized self but failing to see the even more basic inner workings: biology, survival, reproduction, and the will to live.
Individuals given over to their own pursuits, whatever the conscious justification or realization, are first and foremost the playthings of the species, which is more fundamental and determinant than the rationalization ex post facto of their motivations. We are first, in the terms of Schopenhauer, the result of the objectification of the Will and not merely the idealized and subtle psychological beings that we might imagine ourselves to be if we were left entirely to our own devices.
