How can you find your purpose?
I was recently asked by someone I met randomly on the train to work, on how to find yourself and a purpose in life. to work and be engaged in something authentic and bigger than life and you. The person described that life without a purpose, is meaningless, nothing seems interesting – lifeless – everything seems to be routinely boring, repeating itself. I do think that each of us is infinite, and we barely know ourselves, however, by experimenting and reflecting, we can have some sense of understanding about who we are, and we can from there continue to dive and discover more – as you integrate the inner and external world, everything you do will contribute into finding yourself.
This is not an easy task, I think it’s actually an all-encompassing life task. however, I think it’s a very important process that each individual should start early in life.
I would recommend first of all to start reading a lot of books until you understand that you know nothing. That there are infinite information and knowledge about every tiny piece of existence. So you reach a point with infinite paths ahead of you and you need to start by being specific and narrow things down. Reading books accelerate the process.
Like an earthquake: The young soul is all at once shaken, torn apart, cast forth – it comprehends not itself what is taking place. Involuntary onward impulse rules them with the mastery of command; a Will a wish are developed to go forward, anywhere, at any price;
A strong dangerous curiosity regarding undiscovered world flames and flashes in all their being. “Better to die than live here” – so sounds the tempting voice: and this “here”, this “at home” constitutes all they have hitherto loved – Human all too human – Nietzsche
The journey is inwards, and you will need to find some understanding about who you are and what is important to you. What you like, and what you don’t. So you will need a lot of exploration and with that exploration comes pain and frustration mostly, because simply you are constantly trying to take the first steps on new paths. Just like children who try to stand up for the first time.
I think understanding that there is actually no other way, will keep your spirit elevated and keep going. Of course, there are other ways, but you simply do not want to take them, because they will drain you and kill you slowly – it’s also deadly boring.
You can also take it as an abstract task. You see when two people think about a concept, such as Family, it will never be exactly the same, although the two may value Family, and Family is an important part of who they are. You can, for instance, enumerate as many other categories such as Family, and try to work on each category and concept. Few suggestions: Social, Emotional, Spiritual, Physical, Psychological, Logical, Intellectual, Existential,…
Try to ask yourself often, Why you are doing things? a good rule of thumb is to ask recursively 5 times “Why?”