This Is What Happens When We Are Not Afraid To Start Looking For Real Purpose In Our Lives
Many of us have a hard time finding purpose, treating it like a wild unicorn that we must find, capture, and tame, in one swift move. This might be why so many people are intimidated by the idea of pursuing things that don’t follow traditional societal rules.
This is because purpose isn’t handed to us. Jobs are. Well, even jobs aren’t really handed to us, but you get the point. The process of finding purpose is actually quite lengthy. We need to make the effort to try many things before we find the things that we like. Good things take time.
When we have a general idea, we begin to pursue the activities that give us fulfillment. We can develop long term and short term goals, or two time systems with which to gauge our actions, so that they align with our passions. When we settle on actions and behaviors that bring us closer to our desired result, we can begin to see that there are two circles of life that we can live in. Our goal is to make them one — bear with me.
The ring on the left depicts our life without a compass. All the Black orbs surrounding our life are things like our relationships, possessions, the groups we belong to, and the activities we partake in. Most of them are awesome. But we also have friends that truly aren’t our friends. We might also partake in activities that are a waste of time, and have possessions that are really just junk.
Many people are satisfied with this way of life, there is really nothing wrong with it. It’s fairly comfortable. In this mode we generally chug along or go with the flow, accepting whatever outcome life happens to present us with.
The ring on the right is the life we want to live, our goals and dreams. The blue orbs surrounding that ring are the relationships and behaviors we must have, and the risks we must take in order to live that lifestyle — whatever it may be.
Most of us cannot see both sides clearly. We might not see the things that are holding us back in the black ring. We might grossly overestimate how many new habits we would have to take on, in order to live the lifestyle of the blue ring. This causes many of us to do nothing, to keep on keepin’ on in the land of the black ring. Paralysis by analysis.
Sometimes we become brave, and start to take on the habits and actions that move us toward the blue ring. Certain things in these circles will begin to change — some things we must part with, and others we must learn to accept. Like saying no to partying every weekend, and saying yes to getting a head start on the day and waking up at 5 am. This is when the two rings begin their journey and start moving towards each other, getting closer, one day at a time.
This is the learning phase. Here, we might still be unsure if our new behaviors will stick, or if we really think that the actions we take to achieve these goals are worth it. This is the phase where many people give up too early. They do not truly understand the effort required, or experience the fulfillment that can be achieved by pushing forward a bit longer. This is the beginning. We are learning what it feels like to stick with new habits longer than we have ever been used to.
People start becoming aware of our small changes, and start to say things like “Hey, you still training for that crazy marathon?” or “bet you gave up on that coding course! I told you it was tough!” and “you still doin’ that crazy vegan thing?”. At this point, we have carried a new behavior long enough that people are recognizing it, and we even surprise ourselves.
People who have never tried searching for their own purpose can make this process really fun for us, with the right attitude. We begin to respond with answers like “Yea, I’m crazy right. Don’t know what I am thinking, but I’m still gonna do it!” or “haha, yea I must be nuts for thinking I could learn how to code, but i’ll just keep pluggin away”. Hopefully this can inspire others to pursue something that they like after watching you.
After hundreds of hours of hard work, these two circles will begin to intersect. New things start to happen. Things will begin to fuse, and we form a new understanding of required effort, and slightly greater fulfillment. This place is very difficult for most people to get to.
Because we undertook this challenge, we have a clearer image of the things we need to let go of and the new things we need to take on. We begin to see that some of the crazy habits we thought we needed to adopt aren’t really necessary at all, and our new habits are not as crazy as they seemed. Cutting out toxic people and toxic behavior gets easier.
Now we have reached new territory. Months of consistent action and behavior are finally paying off. We feel a little different, something has changed. We have been carefully laying one brick at a time and now we can see a brick wall developing. It feels good. We can run 15 miles without a break, or we are starting to understand lines of code at first glance. Great!
Not quite, the worst is yet to come.
Meet the lull. We begin to feel that our small success is sufficient and we take our foot off the gas. Many of us may have been here before, myself included. One week of inactivity turns into two, and then spirals into 4, and so on. There is a chance you will feel overly content and start to slow down, rejecting another push forward.
Consistent persistence is the key. It took me multiple lull phases and regressions until I finally broke through. If we pull ourselves out of the lull, it feels extremely rewarding. Now we are scratching the surface. It finally dawns on us how much constant effort it really takes to stay in the zone. We might even begin to like the hard work in a slightly masochistic way.
Now that we have experienced the lull, we know how to bounce back. We know what it feels like to begin “falling off” and what it feels like to fight through complacency and laziness. When it happens in the future, we are well equipped to press on and fight through a lack of motivation or ambition.
Fulfillment can be found by binding these two circles together. We fight to get to the point where they are one, by accepting new changes, and saying no to time wasting activities. Easy, right? This is when we are well on our way to achieving our goals. We have been consistent every day. We did at least one thing per day that forwarded our goals, and we can actually see the progress.
The difficulty in the beginning is that people tend to focus on what they are losing rather than what they have to gain. That’s how the human brain works. It responds to negative reactions with more sensitivity than positive ones.
We need to keep persevering, even just to prove to ourselves whether or not we really like our goal or dream. Most people never make themselves uncomfortable enough to even embark on the journey. To slowly, and some days painfully, make those circles intersect and become one. The return on investment will surprise us in ways we could never imagine.
This Is What Happens When We Are Not Afraid To Start Looking For Real Purpose In Our Lives
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