I came across this beautiful post in guiding someone to a life’s purpose:
Problem:
- Not knowing life purpose, lack of clarity on what you truly want in life, what to do in life
Topics:
- Life Purpose, Passion
- Meaning, Purpose, Value
- Time Management
- Theory Vs. Practice, Balancing It
Suggestions / Solutions:
-
Consider the perspective (helpful framing) of life as different categories, shades, areas, domains
- For Example:
- Spirituality / Psychology
- Health/Body
- Purpose/Passion (I.E Life Purpose)
- Finances/Cashflow
- Productivity/Time Management/Efficiency
- Success/Career/Academics
- Social/Relationships
- Romance/Sex
- Friends/Bonds
- Family
- Network/Other
- Activities/Hobbies/Lifestyle/Fun
- These are not strict categories, in fact, you can make them however you want, and they often overlap (especially with the earlier ones, I mentioned like Spirituality/Psychology, this pretty much hits every other domain at its core).
- You can also tier domains by their importance and prevalence.
- These are by no means equivalent domains, but just different “shades” for looking at life.
- There are other ways of categorizing life such as Maslow’s Hierarchy, or a list of needs, etc.
- However, these categorizations, compartmentalization of life offer clarity on a lot, including the different goals, agendas, endeavors you can pursue.
- From this, we can garner that the different goals you speak of, can be seen as in different categories (or endeavors) in life. Based on what you talked about, these are the main categories for those goals (even though they can affect all areas of life, as life may not really be confined to these imagined categorizations)
- Meditation, Enlightenment
- —> Spirituality / Psychology, Life Purpose (Possibly)
- YouTube Channel
- ----> Life Purpose (Possibly), Sucess/Career/Academics (Possibly), Activities/Hobbies,
- Become real-life Socrates
- ----> Spirituality / Psychology, Mainly a mindset/goal/ideal/philosophy that goes throughout all areas
- Get Fit
- ----> Health/Body
- Be Happy
- ----> Spirituality / Psychology, Mainly a goal/ideal that goes throughout all areas
- Spread Love
- ----> Spirituality / Psychology, Life Purpose, Social/Relationships, Mainly a goal/ideal that goes throughout all areas
- Completely Understand Reality
- -----> Spirituality / Psychology, Mainly a goal/ideal that goes throughout all areas
- Embody Love
- -----> Spirituality / Psychology, Life Purpose, Mainly a goal/ideal that goes throughout all areas
- Have mind-blowing sex
- ----> Romance/Sex
- Parkour/Free Running
- ----> Life Purpose (Possibly), Activities/Hobbies
- Meditation, Enlightenment
- Therefore, from this, we can understand that most of these are not necessarily zero-sum (take one or the other) options but different endeavors that you can pursue congruently
- You can, and maybe should pursue all these endeavors (maybe even simultaneously, although that may not be recommended), however, the main area where you really have to make a choice is life purpose
- So you can have mind-blowing sex, be fit, aim to completely understand reality (in those categories of life) while pursuing a life purpose (in its own category of life)
- You can consider the goal of maximizing all these life areas
- Which for life purpose, could mean finding out what it is, and pursuing it for the (1 hour+ a day or whatever like you mentioned)
- (You may have already understood all that, but I say it just to lay the groundwork/foundation and just in case
- You can, and maybe should pursue all these endeavors (maybe even simultaneously, although that may not be recommended), however, the main area where you really have to make a choice is life purpose
- For Example:
-
Do whatever you want
- Unless you have your basic needs met, there is really no rush to getting to life purpose, if you don’t feel the desire to have a life purpose, you don’t necessarily have to force yourself
- You can just do whatever you want, while
- Being aware of the “best” / “ideal” / “end” path (which appears to be having a life purpose)
- Not following your desires off a cliff (like doing hardcore drugs like heroin)
- It appears, that eventually, you will satisfy your earlier / “lower” desires (such as the bottom/mid-tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs) and then desire life purpose naturally
- If you are already here or want to go ahead with life purpose anyway (again doing whatever you want), that’s fine as well
- You can just do whatever you want, while
- Unless you have your basic needs met, there is really no rush to getting to life purpose, if you don’t feel the desire to have a life purpose, you don’t necessarily have to force yourself
-
Pursue Development + Needs
- You can also consider pursuing the development/growth (through Spiral Dynamics, Ego Development, Integral Theory, etc.) as this seems to be what you will end up doing anyway, just at a less efficient pace
- Further, you can consider pursuing all Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (or various psychological needs), just like look at different lists and aim for the ones you think are unmet or want to strengthen/fulfill (but generally this is aligned with following your desires, as you generally would feel desire for whatever need that is unmet)
-
Become Financially Free
- This is simple
- Financial Freedom = Time + Material/Ressource Freedom
- Now you can do whatever you want
- And can get (within a price range) whatever you want
- It’s basically a net benefit for every area of life
- Financial Freedom = Time + Material/Ressource Freedom
- Achieving this is a great launchpad and a huge asset (possibly even a necessity, at least for some) to living a good life
- This is simple
-
Self-Experimentation
- In terms of life purpose (or really figuring out what to do with your life in general or anything)
- Anything before experience (meaning everything I talked about above) is just imagination/thoughts/beliefs/ideas and really serve as predictions
- This means you want to actually go out and experiment / explore these various options
- Experiment w/ the options I gave above (such as following your desires, pursuing development + needs, etc., maybe even multiple at one time)
- Experiment w/ different life purpose options
- For example:
- Make a list of what you think maybe your life purpose, and devote a set time every day (like an hour for anywhere from a week to a month), to gain some first-hand experience on whether its actually want you to want to do with your life
- For example:
- The most important thing is:
- You got to take action
- You’re not going to figure out your life purpose, or what to do through pure thought and research (At best you will get a solid prediction)
- Think about it, you have probably been doing research, thinking, theorizing so far, where has research/theory gotten you?
- Although some healthy research, study, thinking, and contemplation beforehand, won’t hurt ----> you’ve already done that
- The time to take action is NOW
- In terms of life purpose (or really figuring out what to do with your life in general or anything)
