There might be one question that is by far and away, asked more than any other question in the world.
What's my purpose? What's my passion? Why am I here?
The world is in a purpose crisis. Few know what they want to do with their life. Those who do, fail to to do so. Maybe because it doesn't make enough money. Maybe because it's cast down by others. Maybe because it seems like a foolish thing to do.
Purpose and the pursuit of it is a puzzle that you have to navigate. Your calling, in simple terms, is the vehicle through which you want to live your life to create some sort of impact or gain. The difficult part is finding that vehicle.
Let's work backward. Think about the thing that you would want to be your purpose. What characteristics would it have? You'd have to enjoy doing it. You'd have to be good at the thing. The thing would need to bring you some sort of gain; either internal--happiness, presence, peace-- or external--money, impact, status. It would even need to be something you could see yourself doing for the rest of your life.
Let's start with the first two--you need to enjoy doing it and you have to be good at the thing--because that's where this starts and ends.
For something to be a purpose--something you'd want to do for the rest of your life--you need to enjoy doing the thing. No one would spend their life pursuing something they hated, that's called insanity.
To find what you want to do with your life requires experimentation. You can't wait for the thing to find you, you have to find it. What that means is to find what you're interested in--the thing you want to do forever--you have to be interested in a lot of things. But it's not just interest that helps you find your purpose, it's the duration of that interest.
To enjoy doing something, more often than not, you have to be good at the thing, especially if it's going to be your life's calling. But what's the problem when you experiment with something and try something new? You suck. You're not good at it. If you play basketball for the first time, you're not going to be great. If you take up writing, you're going to stink. If you start a company, it's going to fail for a while.
So the dilemma is you have to experiment with something for a long enough time to get good at it to be able to make a call on whether this is something you want to do for the rest of your life. Because, and maybe I'm wrong here, most people don't want to do something they suck at forever. But you have to get through the suck, the months and years of experimenting with the craft or activity or thing, to get good enough to make a realization if the thing is your thing.
The difficulty with this is obvious. It can take years to get to a point of competence to make a good call, and if you realize it's not your calling, you're back to square one. Now it's time to find something again, repeat the same process, then make the call.
It can take years of being interested in things to find out the thing you're interested in. For those struggling with a purpose, it can sound arduous, but let's play out the scenarios.
Scenario A: waiting your whole life for your calling or passion or purpose to come to you. Let me give you the answer. It's never going to come to you so you spend all your life doing something you don't love.
Scenario B: Spending a decade, maybe two experimenting until you find the thing that gives you that feeling and you justknow it's your calling. It might take years, but then you have many more years to live your life doing the thing you always wanted to do.
Scenario A requires less effort. Scenario B leads to less regret.
So the first part of purpose, simplifying a not-so-simple process, is to experiment with new things until you get good to make a call whether it's the thing you want to spend the rest of your life doing.
The next aspect is that thing needs to bring you some sort of gain.
The first gain in our capitalistic, ego-driven, selfish ways we think of is external. Will this make me money, and lots of it? Can this get me recognition? What's the impact I could make on the lives of others?
None of those are inherently wrong or right, you have to follow your intuition and instincts. What matters most to you? Do you want to be rich? Do you want world fame? Do you want to impact lives? I don't have any answer for you, that's something only you can answer.
But I can give more insights into the second part of this, internal gains. This has nothing to do with what the thing brings you materially from the outside world, it has to do with everything it brings from the simple act of doing.
The thing you call your passion should bring you more happiness than almost anything else on the planet. When you're engaged in it, you have that raw, unexplainable feeling in your stomach that you never want to go away. The passage of time just slips away like the rising and setting of the sun every day. When you're not doing the thing, you're thinking about doing the thing. Not because it brings you rewards externally, but because of what the simple act of doing it brings you internally.
Both gains are valuable. But in your quest for purpose, I'll give you my not-so-expert opinion, and tell you to chase the second over the first. Money and status are important, happiness and love are everything.
Think about yourself at the end of your life. Are you going to be thinking, damn, I wish I would've made some more money or damn, I wish I would've spent more time doing the thing I truly love.
Regrets rarely lie in the lack of external rewards, but rather internal feelings from not taking the risk, making the right decision, or doing the thing you wanted to do, love to do, and should've done for the entirety of your short life.
This doesn't answer the complex, ever-changing, puzzle of finding your purpose, but I hope it can offer some ideas to help in your pursuit.
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