Excitement is a good compass, but a bad anchor

Excitement is movement. But what happens when it disappears?

We chase after excitement to find fulfillment. But if it’s just another fleeting high, can you really trust it to guide your life?

Importance

Fulfillment doesn’t come from excitement alone.

Some activities are exciting but useless (like mindless social media), while others are necessary but boring (like practicing piano scales). How exciting they are doesn’t tell you if they’re important or fulfilling.

But you could spend your life only working on things that are important and still be the most miserable person in the world. And blindly following excitement isn’t the answer either: In the case of mindless social media, the excitement is hollow.

Instead, you find fulfillment when you combine excitement with importance.

Because eventually, every kind of excitement fades. And with it the energy that makes you move. Lasting fulfillment is not possible if you base it purely on excitement.

Learning to play the piano may be fun and exciting for a few weeks, but without something to keep you going, it’s just plain hard and difficult.

That’s when you have to make a choice: Should you push through or should you stop?

If you always stop, you’ll be jumping from one thing to another without gaining depth. At the end of your life, you’d regret not having done something meaningful. On the other hand, low excitement could be the sign that it’s not for you.

But if instead you push through, because it feels important, you may discover something else on the other side: passion.

Learning the piano could be a stupid, temporary idea. Or it could become a passion that fulfills you for the rest of your life. Excitement opens up the possibility of finding out.

If excitement is the spark that gets you started, passion is the fire that keeps you going. Because it makes pain and difficulty meaningful.

Fear

But how do you know if something is important in the first place?

One heuristic to find out is whether it scares you. Because often the things that scare you are the things you need to do the most.

One way to see fear is as excitement + resistance. When you’re excited, you lean into an experience. When you’re afraid, you pull away.

Fear can be a warning, but it can also be the discomfort of growth. To find out, you can ask yourself: “What would the best version of me have done in that situation?”

For me, fear is always a sign that I’m invested in a decision, and that I should do something about it. I’d regret not making the scary choice more than the consequences. If it scares you, do it.

Should You Follow Excitement?

So can you trust excitement to find fulfillment?

Yes – but only as a signal, not a destination.

Excitement is a good compass, but a bad anchor.

It’s a good compass, because it shows you what’s worth pursuing and exploring. Its absence shows you what to stay away from.

But it’s a bad anchor because eventually, it will fade. The movement and the motivation it inspired won’t last, leaving you with something difficult and challenging.

In that moment, if something proves meaningful, commit to it. Because once you push through, the difficulty has the potential to turn into lasting fulfillment.