From Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, by Kieran Setiya

Borrowing jargon from linguistics, we can say that some activities are “telic”: they aim at terminal states, at which they are finished and thus exhausted. (“Telic” comes from the Greek “telos” or end, the root of “teleology.”) Driving home is telic: it is done when you get home. So are projects like getting married or writing a book. These are things you can complete. Other activities are “atelic”: they do not aim at a point of termination or exhaustion, a final state in which they have been achieved. As well as walking from A to B, you can go for a walk with no particular destination. That is an atelic activity. So is listening to music, hanging out with friends or family, or thinking about midlife. You can stop doing these things, and you eventually will. But you cannot complete them. They have no limit, no outcome whose achievement exhausts them and therefore brings them to an end.

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If your sources of meaning are overwhelmingly telic then whatever their value—­final, existential, ameliorative—­they are schemes for which success can only mean cessation. It is as if you are striving to eradicate meaning from your life, saved only by the fact that there is too much of it or that you keep on finding more. This is what Schopenhauer got right: if you focus on telic activities, your efforts work against you. Your motivation “springs from lack, from deficiency,” if not from pain: the deficiency that consists in being at a distance from the terminal state at which you aim. Yet in achieving that aim, you end an activity that made your life worthwhile.

Setiya recommends focusing on “how you do” something more than “what you do.” Even if an activity is telic by nature, like writing a book, you can approach it through an atelic mindset by being process oriented or living in the present. It may be as simple as not dwelling on the goal; dwelling on someday ‘being happy’ (the pursuit of happiness) will inevitably lead to unhappiness because it is a telic mindset. Likewise, one can get stuck in the endless pursuit of achievement. That is not to say you shouldn’t set goals or hope to achieve a greater good, but approaching them atelically, process oriented, or by living in the moment may just be a healthier approach to achieving those goals.