Is Goal Setting Bad For You?

Found this discussion thread in a moment of procrastination. Glad I did. (Context: people discussing Getting Things Done/Life Management Gurus and the importance of "setting goals") The person who started the thread describes how goals made him uneasy. Ensuing discussion pits (singleminded) goal setting in one corner, and A Balanced Life in the other.

Here's a highlight (from page 2 of thread, posted by zootski):

I started a small firm during the dotcom boom - I spoke to an older, perhaps jaded venture capitalist and he warned me he couldn't count how many people he had known over the years who had spent years of the most productive healthy parts of their lives determined to be successful entrepreneurs and failing. Of course, only a few can really succeed, and it's up to the individual to decide how far to take it.

For a few years I was working as a consultant to a local power utility. I noticed that a lot of the people doing some of the most boring jobs were in fact VERY INTERESTING PEOPLE. Why? Because they have a life. The CAD manager who is in fact an artist in her spare time and uses every minute of her holiday to pursue her art. The actor who has given up (we are all over 40) on becoming 'successful' and famous, and is spending his free time acting in local productions. I saw him and it was a moving experience - many 'not vey successful' artists of all stripes have a lot to say.

Seems to me that some of the most interesting people actually gravitate to some rather mundane jobs - and save their energy for the other part of their lives.

Interesting stuff.