The goals that you set -- are they objective, dependent upon a real configuration of the real world such that your goal is achieved, or are they purely subjective, dependent only upon your opinion that the goal is complete?
Since you seem intelligent, I entirely disbelieve that you think an "equally valid interpretation" is that any failed goal was misguided. Presumably you've written buggy code -- do you want to convince yourself that you didn't want correct software enough to trade other things in your life? The only way we improve is by acknowledging mistakes.
(You can always blame external events, so I'm not going to touch that, except to say that for the responsible person, everything is their fault.)
The goals I set are objective, dependent upon the state of the outside world at some future point in time. The meta-goal I set, of living a happy life, is subjective, dependent upon only my own experience. I don't always achieve it, but I take failure to be happy at any given point in time as a signal that I need to change something in either the internal or external world.
The point I'm making - and this is pretty much straight out of a few philosophy courses in college - is that there's a fact/value distinction. Whether or not you achieved a goal is a fact - if you're setting them right, it's measurable and externally verifiable. Whether that goal is good or not is a value - there is no possible way to answer that question other than resorting to your personal value system (or adopting someone else's personal value system). Your personal value system might decree that "It's a good thing when I achieve my goals" - but there is nothing inherent about that, only that you have decided to live your life in a goal-driven way. Other people may hold different values. I do, for example - after much self-examination, I figured out that I'm really discovery-driven, and for me, learning things is an inherent good and achieving my goals is only instrumental.
Also, there's a distinction between inherent and instrumental values. An inherent value is something that's intrinsically good, based on your value system. An instrumental value is something that helps you achieve an inherent value. Many of your goals will be to satisfy instrumental values - if they fail, then you try another approach, you don't think of it as a failure.
To answer your (rhetorical) question: yes, I've written buggy code, and sometimes I've written buggy code deliberately. The reason - in the instance I'm thinking about - was because writing the correct code would've increased latency (this was Javascript, where all the program logic has to be shipped to the client). User happiness was the inherent value, and performance was judged to be a more effective instrument to get there than correctness. So the decision made was to ship the buggy code despite it being buggy, because that actually achieved our purposes much better than making it correct.
That's the sort of flexibility you get from understanding what you're really going for and what are just steps to get you there. You can swap out the steps if they don't work out.
Comments
The goals that you set -- are they objective, dependent upon a real configuration of the real world such that your goal is achieved, or are they purely subjective, dependent only upon your opinion that the goal is complete?
Since you seem intelligent, I entirely disbelieve that you think an "equally valid interpretation" is that any failed goal was misguided. Presumably you've written buggy code -- do you want to convince yourself that you didn't want correct software enough to trade other things in your life? The only way we improve is by acknowledging mistakes.
(You can always blame external events, so I'm not going to touch that, except to say that for the responsible person, everything is their fault.)
The goals I set are objective, dependent upon the state of the outside world at some future point in time. The meta-goal I set, of living a happy life, is subjective, dependent upon only my own experience. I don't always achieve it, but I take failure to be happy at any given point in time as a signal that I need to change something in either the internal or external world.
The point I'm making - and this is pretty much straight out of a few philosophy courses in college - is that there's a fact/value distinction. Whether or not you achieved a goal is a fact - if you're setting them right, it's measurable and externally verifiable. Whether that goal is good or not is a value - there is no possible way to answer that question other than resorting to your personal value system (or adopting someone else's personal value system). Your personal value system might decree that "It's a good thing when I achieve my goals" - but there is nothing inherent about that, only that you have decided to live your life in a goal-driven way. Other people may hold different values. I do, for example - after much self-examination, I figured out that I'm really discovery-driven, and for me, learning things is an inherent good and achieving my goals is only instrumental.
Also, there's a distinction between inherent and instrumental values. An inherent value is something that's intrinsically good, based on your value system. An instrumental value is something that helps you achieve an inherent value. Many of your goals will be to satisfy instrumental values - if they fail, then you try another approach, you don't think of it as a failure.
To answer your (rhetorical) question: yes, I've written buggy code, and sometimes I've written buggy code deliberately. The reason - in the instance I'm thinking about - was because writing the correct code would've increased latency (this was Javascript, where all the program logic has to be shipped to the client). User happiness was the inherent value, and performance was judged to be a more effective instrument to get there than correctness. So the decision made was to ship the buggy code despite it being buggy, because that actually achieved our purposes much better than making it correct.
That's the sort of flexibility you get from understanding what you're really going for and what are just steps to get you there. You can swap out the steps if they don't work out.