…Although it is monotonous, hard work all around, straining his body to the limits while the stone has almost 100% chance of rolling right back down, leaving our (anti)hero right where he started to do it again. Seems like a long way to go to end up nowhere doesn’t it, to go right back to the beginning as if all the effort you put into the task was never there at all. But the alternative is not rolling the boulder at all.

Punished for his mischief of delusional grandeur and deceitfulness, the Greek Gods decided to set a penalty of a futile laborious act upon the fallen king, active immediately and in place for all eternity. You would be rooting for Sisyphus that the boulder finally stays at the top in one of his struggles now wouldn’t you? Of course you would, because you have compassion and because the emotional part of you would love to see the suffering end. But this part of you doesn’t know that the anticipation of achieving a goal is actually the real value of goal setting, far more than achieving the goal itself. It’s something along the lines of – it’s about the journey not the destination. And it’s true.

Psychologically you’re far more motivated while perusing something – an ideal or a goal. Achieving it has a weird effect of temporary euphoria and pride (depending on how much work and wit you put into the task) and then a crash occurs where the framework that guided your actions up until achieving of the goal collapses and in the majority of situations this leaves an empty space of dread, feeling lost or an onset of depression, because – what now? The achieving of the goal (if it is something finite such as making the rock stay where you want it to be, winning the match, getting a degree…) is almost as a rule an anticlimactic experience, and to put it in a Sisyphean terms, everything else is downhill from there – unless… unless you set a new target. And this is why we are all Sisyphus as well, because we can never reach where we’re going, the target moves all the time. As you reach one level, the new one reveals itself. What was achievable is not enough anymore and you end up just yearning for more, for bigger, better and grander things and getting caught up in a spiral of attachment to things outside of ourselves. Anticipation of a goal brings more emotional rewards than achieving it.

So maybe Sisyphus is not the wretched sad creature doomed to eternal suffering, but one blessed with an eternal goal, something to strive for. If the boulder didn’t roll back down what happens then? What is he to do and where does he go forward from that place? Maybe Sisyphus needs to roll his stone, and maybe you need to roll your as well. It is not futile; there are a lot of things to learn each time on the way up and on the way down and achieving a goal does not make you happy long-term. Plus, maybe the goal was faulty to begin with and there is far more value in the lessons along the way. So keep on rolling. If nothing else, you’ll at least gather no moss.