I just quit my 9-to-5, and now the real work begins…
Have you seen statements like this on social media?
You see, a lot of us don’t feel fulfilled in our current work or home environment. We begin to question things, and some of us act while others just continue to question things without ever moving…
My aim for this article is to explore why we have these feelings and why some of us choose to ignore them vs embrace them.
Thoughts
As I embark on research that will shape and lead this article. I contemplate how my own personality guides me in a variety of subjects…
I often contemplate, is it personality itself or is there this lack of fulfilment mentally (inside the box) vs emotionally (outside the box)?
Questioning often leads me down a rabbit hole of other questions…
- What makes us like, love or hate something… in a professional sense…. in a hobby sense?
- What will make me happy and worthwhile to spend my time on?
- What makes us gravitate towards a profession?
- Why are we interested in that skill or subject?
- How do our personalities guide us to certain decisions or outcomes?
And so on… I don’t have all the answers, but let’s explore further…
Meaning
Often, at work, you might be thinking to yourself… what am I actually doing here? What’s the purpose of this, and why don’t I feel fulfilled?
You just reached the epiphany moment. The moment where you finally begin to question meaning over time and money. Now this is an important thought but how you act on this will determine the next chapter of your life.
You see, I have personally questioned this exact thing. I have come to the conclusion that what I currently do just doesn’t fulfill me in the way my body, mind, and soul want.
I know this is the case because I have been questioning this for over 20 years. This doesn’t mean I haven’t been learning and applying what I learned along the way. I have dabbled in a variety of businesses such as e-commerce, AmazonFBA, NFT dashboards, podcasts, YouTube, and many, many more side projects.
The one thing that’s always led me to stop was time and effort… I am naturally curious… I love to explore… but that often means taking in a multitude of inputs and not enough power to process all these back in to an output…
Instead, things begin to decay and become obsolete… think of it like technology… A phone from 15 years ago isn’t the same as today’s minicomputers.
That begs the question, then, how do we take the time to figure out what actually gives us meaning? I don’t think the answer is something you will find online or in a research paper.
Sure, there might be methods on how to systematically break down how to ask or Frame certain questions, but the answer itself is deep rooted… only you will know what YOU actually care enough about to make it life’s mission.
An article on Greater Good indicates that if
“We find purpose in everyday tasks. We can significantly increase life’s overall meaning.”
What is Life’s Purpose?
In psychological terms, the purpose is a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is personally meaningful and, at the same time, leads to productive engagement with some aspect of the world beyond the self.
In the article Seeing Your Life Story as a Hero’s Journey, proposes that viewing one’s life as a hero’s journey can enhance the sense of meaning.
By thinking of yourself as the knight or main character that saves the world can help attach meaning to tasks and projects.
There are many tests or questionnaires you can take, such as:
- Life Regard Index
- Purpose in Life subscale of the Psychological Scales of Well-being
- Meaning in Life Questionnaire
- Existence Subscale of the Purpose in Life Test
- Revised Youth Purpose Survey
- Claremont Purpose Scale and the Life Purpose Questionnaire
According to Mark Manson a better question to ask vs what’s life purpose is “What can I do with my time that is important?”
I think Marks quote makes sense in this case. Life’s purpose is truly hard to answer, psychologists, scientists, philanthropists have been trying to answer this question for decades… If it were easy it would have been answered by now.
The point is, rather than looking at Life’s Purpose, I think breaking down what we accomplish with our time can compound into “life.”
What I mean is if we continue to find and accomplish tasks that we truly care about, the compounding effect over time, say, months, years etc, that we can say that we’ve found “life’s purpose” in a sense can’t we?
Think of it as if we are laying bricks one on top of the other… trying to remain level so it doesn’t tip over. Every once in a while, will need to mix the cement (finding the next task) and once mixed start to lay the bricks again.. Over time, we reinforce the structure, and slowly but surely, after some “time,” we can see this humongous structure we’ve built, in other words, a proud, strong, standing structure.
Final Thoughts
Finding meaning in life should be viewed as finding smaller tasks we care about. The compounding effect over time will give us great meaning and satisfaction.
I don’t think we can answer the golden question right now, what’s life’s purpose, but we can strive to chip away at it one task at a time.
If you enjoyed this article, join me in exploring other similar topics!
