What does Life Purpose Really Means?? by Mark Manson
I've been a fan of this American blogger slash author of a famous new york times bestseller self-help book: THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A FUCK."
This blog is a re-echo of what he is trying to point out about "What PURPOSE really means".. in which I found myself so resonated with.
What is Life Meaning and Purpose? And Why does it matter??
PURPOSE is a concept that's often misunderstood by everyone.
While others are asking what are their true calling, or what really makes them happy, ..
What they are really referring to is something very profound and complex.
The truth is…
PURPOSE is just something you make up in your mind.
It's essentially deciding that something is important and then doing it because you feel IT IS IMPORTANT.
So in that sense, you can literally find purpose anywhere.
For instance.. You can find purpose in doing the dishes, throwing out the trash. You can find purpose in studying, watching TV, reading books or even going on a date with your girlfriend/boyfriend.
You can find purpose on cooking yummy meals, doing the exercise once a week, you can find purpose in building good relationships with your co-workers.
What I mean is you can find purpose even in mundane tasks.
What I find is that, when people are asking questions about purpose or searching for purpose, ..
..really what they're asking is " I WANT TO FIND AN IMPORTANT USE OF MY TIME."
"I WANT TO SPEND MY LIFE DOING SOMETHING THAT FEELS MEANINGFUL, SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A DUMB DOING IT."
"I WANT TO DO SOMETHING IMPORTANT THAT I CAN BE PROUD OF."
And the reason why PURPOSE is important is because a lot of the low level tactical stuff that people come to personal development for, are actually solved by this purpose question.
PURPOSE is an ONGOING CREATION.
It is NOT something you find.
You're not looking under a rock and say "Oh fuck! There's my purpose! So glad I found it."
No, that's not really the case..
PURPOSE is something that you create and you maintain and sometimes you lose.. and you're gonna have to create it again.
Furthermore, it is NOT true that there is only a single purpose for each of us.
It is not true at all whether you've been reading thru other self help books out there.
You can have many, many purposes in your life.
You can find purpose in being a Mom to your kids, a wife to your husband, a good employee in your job.
You can find purpose in being Catmom / Catdad to your pet.
You can find purpose and meaning in Romantic relationship with your longterm partner. And so on.
So meaning and purpose comes from a lot of different areas of our life. And I would even say that it is healthy to diversify our sense of purpose throughout our life.
Just like the way we diversify our money investments to prevent tragic misfortune, we need to diversify our sense of purpose too, otherwise we might go insane in dealing with the grief.
If you're only getting purpose and meaning from ONE THING, and that thing is taken away from you, well you're doomed.
Then you're gonna have a deep existential crisis and feel like your life now is meaningless. This is why some people who lack proper coping and comforting would go either commit suicide or go insane.
But if you're able to derive from multiple sources of purpose throughout your life, and then one of them is taken away from you, then you can fall back on the other sources of meaning and purpose.
So the idea that we have one true calling in the world or we have only one true love throughout our lifetime is bullshit.
You can find any career you want as long as you can do the job well..
You can still find someone to love and who can love you even after your exes dumped you … as long as you're alive. Life purpose goes on.