"We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve"
About this Quote
Maltz argues that human beings are goal-directed organisms. Satisfaction does not come from ease or passive contentment but from purposeful effort. When life presents problems to solve and obstacles to overcome, the mind engages its natural guidance system: setting a target, comparing current reality to that target, making corrections, and moving forward. Without that cycle of aim, error, and adjustment, energy has nowhere to flow, and the result is stagnation rather than peace.
He wrote from the vantage of a plastic surgeon who saw that changing a face did not automatically change a life. Patients flourished when their self-image shifted toward agency and possibility, and they faltered when they had nothing compelling to work toward. Drawing on mid-century cybernetics, he described the self as a servo-mechanism, happiest when it has something meaningful to aim at. The emphasis is on meaningful. Pursuit for its own sake can become a treadmill, but obstacles aligned with values convert stress into eustress, the invigorating kind that builds competence and confidence.
The line presages later ideas about flow and self-efficacy. People feel most alive when challenges are matched to their abilities yet stretch them a little beyond the familiar. Too little challenge produces boredom; too much produces anxiety. The sweet spot is a sequence of well-chosen goals that invite growth and provide clear feedback. That is why achievement brings a surge of fulfillment that comfort alone cannot sustain, and why life after a major win often feels empty until a new, worthy aim is set.
Read this way, conquering environment does not mean dominating others or nature, but mastering circumstances through creativity and disciplined adaptation. The remedy to modern drift and burnout is not doing more indiscriminately, but selecting goals that matter, taking on obstacles sized to develop rather than break you, and renewing the cycle of striving, attaining, and integrating. Meaning rides on that motion.
He wrote from the vantage of a plastic surgeon who saw that changing a face did not automatically change a life. Patients flourished when their self-image shifted toward agency and possibility, and they faltered when they had nothing compelling to work toward. Drawing on mid-century cybernetics, he described the self as a servo-mechanism, happiest when it has something meaningful to aim at. The emphasis is on meaningful. Pursuit for its own sake can become a treadmill, but obstacles aligned with values convert stress into eustress, the invigorating kind that builds competence and confidence.
The line presages later ideas about flow and self-efficacy. People feel most alive when challenges are matched to their abilities yet stretch them a little beyond the familiar. Too little challenge produces boredom; too much produces anxiety. The sweet spot is a sequence of well-chosen goals that invite growth and provide clear feedback. That is why achievement brings a surge of fulfillment that comfort alone cannot sustain, and why life after a major win often feels empty until a new, worthy aim is set.
Read this way, conquering environment does not mean dominating others or nature, but mastering circumstances through creativity and disciplined adaptation. The remedy to modern drift and burnout is not doing more indiscriminately, but selecting goals that matter, taking on obstacles sized to develop rather than break you, and renewing the cycle of striving, attaining, and integrating. Meaning rides on that motion.
Quote Details
| Topic | Overcoming Obstacles |
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