Find What's Important not “Purpose”

Most of us have no clue what we want to do with our lives. After we finish school. After we get a job. While we’re earning money. Between ages 18 and 25, I changed career aspirations and jobs more often than I changed my underwear. And even after I had a dream job, it wasn’t until I was 26 that I clearly defined what I wanted for my life. Chances are you’re more like me and have no clue what you want to do. It’s a struggle almost every adult goes through. “What do I want to do with my life?” “What am I passionate about?” “What do I not suck at?” I often find people in their 40s and 50s who still have no clue what they want to do with themselves.

Actually the problem is with the concept of “life purpose” itself. It's the idea that we were born for some higher purpose in life and now it's our cosmic mission to find that. This same kind of shitty logic was used to justify things like magic crystals or that your lucky number is 08 (but only on Tuesdays or during full moons).

Here’s the truth. We exist on this earth for some undetermined period. During that time we do things. Some of these things are important. Some of them are unimportant. And those important things that give our lives some meaning and loads of happiness. And the unimportant ones basically just tend to kill the time.

Now here it is I hear a lot of people asking, “Why am I born?” or “What is that i'm living for?” what they’re actually confused about is: “What can I do with the time that is more important to me?”

Well this is infinitely a better question to ask and is also a lot more manageable as it doesn’t have the ridiculous baggage that the “life purpose” question does. There’s no reason for you to contemplate about the cosmic significance of your life while sitting on your sofa and eating burgers & pizzas all day long. Rather, you should be getting off your ass and discovering what is important to you at the moment.

I get a lot of people asking me What should I do with my life, what my “life purpose” is. This is an impossible question for me to answer. After all, for all I know, this person is really into cooking good food for kids or just cleaning the house or maybe doing some gardening. I have no clue. Who am I to say what’s right or what’s important to them?

Now I have a series of questions for you to ask yourself which will help you figure out what is important to you and what can add a little meaning to your life.

These questions are by no means definitive or exhaustive. In fact, they’re a bit ridiculous. But I made them that way because it is not easy to discover important things in our lives and at the same time it should be something that’s fun and interesting, And not sound like a chore or then it becomes boring isn't it.

1. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR OF SHIT SANDWICH AND DOES IT COME WITH SOME EXTRA CHEESE IN IT?

Ahhh, yes. The most important question. What kinna flavor of shit sandwich do you like to eat? Because here’s the stincky little truth about life and this is what they don’t tell you at your school or even in college:

And that is Everything sucks, At one point of time.

Now, you gotta believe me on this as it probably sounds incredibly pessimistic of me. And you may be thinking, “Hey Senorita, turn that frown upside down.” But I actually think this is a huge liberating idea.

Everything in life involves sacrifice. And this everything includes some sort of cost. Nothing is pleasurable or uplifting all the time. So the question becomes: what struggle or sacrifice are you willing to go through? Ultimately, what determines our ability to stick with something we care is all about our ability to handle the rough patches and ride out of the inevitable rotten days.

If you want to be a brilliant tech entrepreneur, but you can’t handle failure, then you’re not going to make it far. If you want to be a professional artist, but you aren’t willing to see your art being rejected hundreds or even thousands of times, then you’re done before you start. If you want to be a sucessful court lawyer, but can’t stand the 80-hour workweeks, then I'm sorry dude I’ve got some bad news for you.

What unpleasant experiences can you handle? Are you able to stay up all night coding? Are you able to put off starting a family for 10 years? Are you able to have people laugh you off at the stage over and over again until you get it right?

What kinna shit sandwich do you want to eat? Because eventually you gonna be served one. So Might as well pick the one with that extra cheese.

2. WHAT YOU THINK IS TRUE ABOUT YOU TODAY THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR 8-YEAR-OLD SELF CRY?

When I was a child, I used to read books. I used to sit in my room for hours by myself, reading away, about fairies, about prince charming, and not this then atleast my school books. Not because I wanted anyone to see me doing it. Not because I wanted to impress my parents or teachers. But just for the joy I got reading those books.

And for some reason, I stopped reading completely for a few months and I don’t remember why.

We all have a tendency to lose touch with what we loved as a child. Sometimes because of the social pressures of adolescence and professional pressures of adulthood squeezes the passion out of us. We’re taught that the only reason to do something is if we’re somehow able to gain something out of it.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that I rediscovered how much I loved reading. And it wasn’t until I started my music classes that I remembered how much I enjoyed my music my guitar — something I did in my early teens, hiding from my mum just for fun.

The funny thing though, is that if my 8-year-old self had asked my 20-year-old self, “Why did you stop reading?”(tough I have a collection of books which I read daily ) and I replied, “Because I don't enjoy it,” or “nobody would appreciate it,” or “simply because you can’t make money doing that,” I would've been completely wrong if I said that, And also that 8-year-old girl version of me would've probably started crying.

3. WHAT MAKES YOU FORGET TO EAT AND THEN POOP?

We’ve all had that experience where we get so wrapped up with our work that minutes turn into hours and hours turn into “Holy crap, I completely forgot to have my dinner.”

Supposedly, if, Newton’s mum had to regularly come in and remind him to eat because his entire days would get so absorbed with his work that even he would forget.

I used to be like that and I'm still like that with my books. This probably Isn’t a good thing. In fact, for many years it was kind of a problem. I would sit and keep reading and writing instead of doing other things like playing, or showering regularly, or speaking to my family and meeting my friends face-to-face.

It wasn’t until I gave up a bit of my books that I realized my passion wasn’t for the books themselves (although I do love them). My passion is for improvement, being good at something and then trying to get better. The books themselves — the graphics, the stories were super cool, but I can easily live without all that. It’s the competition with others, but especially with myself that I thrive on.

And when I applied that obsessiveness for improvement and self-competition, things took off in a big way.

Maybe for you, it’s something else. it could be anything, don’t just look at the things that keep you up all night, but look at the actual principles behind those activities that enthrall you. Because they can easily be applied elsewhere.

4. HOW BETTER CAN YOU EMBARRASS YOURSELF?

Before you are able to be best at something and doing something really important, you must first simply suck at something and while having no clue at what you’re doing. That’s pretty much obvious. And in order to really suck at something and have no clue what you’re doing, you must embarrass yourself in every or atleast some shape or form, most often repeatedly. And most of the people try to avoid embarrassing themselves, namely just because it sucks.

Ah! Come on , just coz of the transitive properties of awesomeness if you avoid anything and everything that could potentially embarrass you, then you will never ever end up doing something that feels important.

Yeah, and it seems like once again, it is all coming back to vulnerability.

Right now, there’s something that you want to do, something that you thinking about doing, something that you fantasize doing, yet you don’t end up doing it. You can have your reasons to it , no doubt. And you repeat these reasons to yourself to the infinite.

And what are those reasons? Because I can tell you right away that if those reasons are based on what others would think of you, then believe me you’re screwing yourself big time.

If your reason is something like, “I can’t start my own business because spending time with my family is more important ,” or “Playing Soccer all day would probably interfere with my music, and music is more important to me,” then it. Sounds great.

But if your giving reasons like, “My parents wouldn't allow,” or “My friends would end up making fun of me,” or “What if I failed, wouldn't I look like a complete idiot,” then there are chances , that you’re actually avoiding something about what you truly care because caring about that particular thing is what gets the shit out of you, not what mom thinks or what Mrs. D'souza next door says.

So start with embracing embarrassment. Feels foolish, Right! Well it's part of the path to achieving something important and meaningful. The more a life decision scares you, the more you need to be doing it.

5. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SAVE YOUR COUNTRY?

Have you seen the news lately, India has many problems. And by “many problems,” what I really mean is, “everything is sucked and we’re all in a great mess.”

I’ve told this before, and the many of the researches also bears it out, but to live a happy and healthy life, we must hold on to values that's greater than our own satisfaction or pleasure.

So pick up a problem and start to save india. There are plenty of problems to choose from. Our screwed up education system, the pathetic economic development, most common domestic violence, or maybe mental health care, or simply the governmental corruption. Hell, I just saw an article this morning on sex trafficking in our country and it got me all riled up and wishing I could do something. It also ruined my breakfast which had my favorite bacon.

So get up and find a problem that you care about and start to solve it. Obviously, you’re not going to fix all of the india’s problems by yourself. But you can surely contribute and make a difference. And that feeling of making a difference is ultimately what’s most important for yourself fulfillment.

6. GUN TO YOUR HEAD, IF YOU HAD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, WHERE WOULD YOU GO AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

For many of us, the enemy is just old-fashioned complacency. We get into our routines. We distract ourselves. The couch is comfortable. The Pizza is cheesy. And nothing new happens.

This is a problem.

What most people don’t understand is that passion is the result of action not the cause of it.

Discovering what you’re passionate about in life and what matters to you is a full-contact sport, a trial-and-error process. None of us would exactly know of how we feel about an activity until we actually do it.

So ask yourself, if someone put a gun to your head and forced you to leave your house every day for everything except for sleep, how would you choose to occupy yourself? And no, you can’t just go sit in a coffee shop and browse Facebook. You probably already do that. Let’s pretend there are no useless websites, no video games, no TV. You have to be outside of the house all day every day until it’s time to go to bed — where would you go and what would you do?

Sign up for a dance class? Join a book club? Go get another degree? Invent a new form of irrigation system that can save the thousands of children’s lives in rural India? Learn to hang glide?

What would you do with all that time you've got? If it strikes your fancy, write down a few answers and then, you know, go out and actually do them. Bonus points if it involves embarrassing yourself.

7. IF YOU KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DIE ONE YEAR FROM TODAY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO AND HOW WOULD YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?

Most of us don’t like thinking about death. It freaks us out. But thinking about our own death surprisingly has a lot of practical advantages. Now one of the advantage is that it forces us to zero on what’s actually important to and what is distracting and frivolous.

When I was in high school, I walked around to ask people, “What If you had a year to live, And what would you do?” As you would imagine, A lot of people gave wierd and boring answers. And even a few drinks were nearly spit on me. But it did cause people to really think about their lives in a different way and try to re-evaluate their priorities .

What your legacy is going to be? What stories are people going to tell when you’re gone? What is your obituary got to say? Is there anything at all that can be said about you? If not, what is it that you would like it to be said? How will you start working towards it today?

And again, if you gonna fantasize what your obituary is saying is just a bunch of badass shit that impresses a bunch of some random people, then again, you gonna fail here.

When people feel like they have no sense of direction, no purpose in their life, it’s because they don’t know what’s important to them, they don’t know what their values are.

And when you don’t know about your values , You then tend to take on other people’s values and start living other people’s priorities instead of your own. This is a one-way ticket to relationships that are unhealthy and eventually miser as well.

So discovering what's important in life could zero down to finding those one or two random things that could be bigger than yourself, and bigger than even those around you. 

life#importance#purpose#motivation........