Purpose - Pt. I
What should I do with my life?
I went to one of those personal development cults/seminars once, and I asked a barrage of questions:
“Shut the fuck up”, the seminar leader said
“You already know all the answers inside. You’re just asking me for permission to do what you already know is right. You’re looking for validation. Stop. You don’t need anyone’s permission. When you get an internal sense of what’s right, just go do it. Act, and then see what happens. Adjust your actions depending on the results that you get.
When you come across a problem, think for yourself how to solve it, trust in your own judgement. See the world with your own fresh pair of eyes and make your own conclusions from first hand experience. Don’t just listen to everything that other people tell you. Always question and think critically; other people are no smarter than you are. Listen to others, but think for yourself.”
what should I do with my life guru?
images inspired by stolen from waitbutwhy.com
FOLLOW YOUR HEART
The best advice I’ve ever gotten in my life is to follow my heart. I think of it like, there’s a guiding compass inside of me, that always knows which direction to go. An inner voice that knows what’s right. I just need to tune into it and trust it.
For example, right after university, I worked in investment banking and hated my life. I hated the lack of freedom, the repetitive tasks, the ass kissing. I knew I wanted to work on my own business. An online business that would let me travel and explore the world. But I didn’t trust myself. I’ve studied so hard to land this job. All my friends where in corporate. How could it possibly be the right move to leave when everyone else was happily working? Wasn’t I living the corporate dream? I kept looking to other people for career advice, when I already knew. It took me 6 months to find the courage. I decided to start my own business – it was the best decision of my life.
Elon Musk also follows his heart. He calls it: “thinking from first principles”. When asked how he came up with the ideas for Tesla, SpaceX and Paypal, Elon looked inside. He asked himself what are the biggest problems that humanity is currently facing? And thought about solutions to those problems. Meanwhile, most people are caught up with the crowd, trying to ride market trends. Let’s do cryptocurrency for dogs!
SOCIAL CONDITIONING
There are all these people telling us how we should live our lives. Social conditioning is fucking with us everywhere. Work is telling us that climbing the corporate ladder means success in life. Fashion trends are defining what beautiful is. Our social group is making us conform and act in a socially acceptable way.
Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised by television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won’t. We’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off. – Fight Club
Humans are tribal creatures; we’re wired to go with the crowd. But just because everyone else believes in something, it does not mean that it’s right. In the past, everyone believed that the earth was flat. We look back and think that’s ridiculous. Now imagine that you’re in the future looking back. Could it be that there are heaps of popular beliefs we hold today that our future selves would think are ridiculous?
We forget to listen to ourselves. Our default state is to listen to others. We spend our lives trying to live up to other people’s expectations. But most people have never sat down and really thought about what they want to do with their lives. And it’s important that we think about it because we only have one life. We only have a limited time on this planet. One day we will be dead.
You’re time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. – Steve Jobs
The challenge for our generation is creating a world where everyone has a sense of purpose. Purpose is that sense that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, that we are needed, that we have something better ahead to work for. Purpose is what creates true happiness. – Mark Zuckerberg
This is Pt. I of the full length article, which originally appeared in full here: https://conscioused.org/wiki/purpose-what-should-i-do-with-my-life/
