Goals in Life

Today I read this quote:

There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second. -Logan Pearsall Smith, essayist (1865-1946)

At first, this seems like a wise observation. Then it occurred to me...what if we think of this in light of cognitive accuracy?

What do we mean by "get what you want"? Do you *know* what you want? Do you know how to "get" it? Do you know whether you can "enjoy it" after you get it?

What if, instead, we thought of it this way:

In life, the wisest of us look for ways to maximize whatever we find enjoyable, and minimize what we find least so.

This view acknowledges that we may not necessarily know what we find enjoyable, that we may not have the means to "get what we want", and that we do best to take a pragmatic, cognitively accurate view of what we do encounter, enjoyable or not.