Discover Your Life's Purpose
When my baby brother was 13 years old, he waltzed into the living room and proudly announced to my late mother and I that he would one day become a politician. My mom probably gave him "That's nice, sweetie" treatment while I’m sure I was distracted by a bowl of cornflakes cereal or something.
But for 10 years, this goal guided all of my brother's life choices; he intended to major in political science but chose computer science instead. Together with his other goals in life, such as the place he called home, the people he associated with, and even the things he did during many of his weekends spent with my politician uncle and wealthy cousins.
Add to that the absence of our deceased father. He made sure to have the right role models.
He is almost halfway to becoming a great and influential person after working hard for years. He recently secured a position on the 'Students' Union Government (SUG) committee in school while still in his 20s.
The majority of us are unsure of our life goals, even once we've finished with school, even once we land a job. We continue to make money even after. I changed my professional goals more frequently than my under wears. After I started a career in Banking, it took me two years to figure out what I really wanted out of life.
Most likely, you lack direction. It's a battle that practically every adult faces. What do I hope to accomplish with my life? "What do I care about deeply?" "What am I good at?" Most people are still unsure of their career goals.
AN ISSUE WITH SEARCHING FOR A "LIFE PURPOSE"
The idea of a "life purpose" itself is a contributing factor in the issue. the notion that it is our cosmic duty to discover our individual higher purposes for being here. The same shoddy reasoning is employed in astrology, which I kind of believe in, to support various claims - Support 8 as your lucky number or spirit gemstones, such as amethyst, which may be the reason you have an irrational preference for a certain color, as I do for the color purple.
Like one of the popular pastors in Nigeria would always say; Life is a battlefield.
We don't need to dally but make most of it, I am not a soothsayer nor a seer, all I have as a writer are my brain, ink, paper, keyboard and keypad, and I know these are things I need to carve an enviable niche on literary work.
Life is more of defining the PURPOSE. Do I feel good discovering my other passions, I do absolutely, without no doubt!
Life will neither make you or break you.
Here is the reality. We are here on earth for an arbitrary amount of time. When that happens, we take action. Some of these items are crucial. Some of them don't matter. And those significant things give our lives purpose and joy. The unimportant ones essentially serve as time fillers.
So when people say, “What should I do with my life?” or “What is my life purpose?” what they’re actually asking is:
"What can I do with my time that is important?”
This is a far superior query to pose. It's far easier to handle and doesn't come with as much absurd baggage as the "life purpose" question does. You have no business thinking about the cosmic implications of your existence while binge-watching Doritos on your couch. Instead, you ought to get off your ass and figure out what matters to you.
But after doing some study, I have created a set of questions to assist you in determining what is significant to you and what can give your life greater purpose.
These inquiries are by no means all-inclusive or conclusive. In fact, they border on the absurd. But I built them that way because I believe finding our mission in life should be enjoyable and intriguing rather than a work.
So perhaps you find some significant answers to these absurd, but kind of thought provoking questions, whether you're looking for your dream job, considering starting a second profession, or you just don't want to live your entire life wondering "what if..."
Everything requires a sacrifice. Everything has an associated cost. Nothing is always pleasurable or uplifting. So the question becomes, how much difficulty or sacrifice are you ready to put up with? What ultimately defines our capacity to continue with something we care about is our ability to deal with adversity and ride out the inevitable bad days.
If you want to be a fantastic Tech entrepreneur but can't take failure, you won't get very far. If you want to be a professional artist but are unwilling to have your work rejected hundreds, if not thousands, of times, you're done before you even begin. I've got bad news for you if you want to be a hotshot court lawyer but can't tolerate the 80-hour workweeks.
What unpleasant experience can you tolerate? Can you stay up all night coding? Can you wait 10 years before starting a family? Are you able to have people laugh you off the stage over and over until you get it right?
What kind of shit sharwama do you want? Because we will all be served one at some point.
And your favorite sh*t sharwama gives you an advantage. By definition, everything you're willing to do (that you enjoy doing) that most people aren't provides you a significant advantage.
So, go out and find your favorite sh*t sharwama. You might as well choose one with a lettuce.
I used to write down new words when I was a kid. I used to sit in my room by myself for hours, writing about words and their meanings, about my friends and family. I didn't write it because I wanted anyone to read it. I didn't do it to impress my parents or teachers. But just for the sake of it.
And then, for some reason, I came to a halt. And I have no idea why.
We all have a propensity to lose touch with the things we enjoyed as children. Something about the social and occupational strains of youth and young adulthood saps our passion. We've been taught that the only incentive to do something is to be rewarded for it. And the world's transactional nature unavoidably suffocates us and makes us feel lost or stuck.
It wasn't until I was in my mid-20s that I realized how much I missed writing. And it wasn't until I met an ex that passed on that I realized how much I enjoyed doing it — something I used to do for pleasure in my early teens.
The odd thing is, if my eight-year-old self had asked my twenty-year-old self, "Why don't you write anymore?" If I had said, "Because I'm not good at it," or "Because nobody would read what I write," or "Because you can't make money doing that," I would not only have been utterly wrong, but the eight-year-old-girl version of me would probably have begun crying. That eight-year-old girl was unconcerned about Google traffic, social media virality, views or likes. She just wanted to have fun. And it is always with a sense of play that passion begins.
We've all had the sensation of becoming so engrossed in something that minutes turn into hours, and hours turn into "Omg, I forgot to have dinner."
Isaac Newton's mother allegedly had to routinely come in and remind him to eat since he would spend full days so engaged in his work that he would forget.
I used to be like that when it came to video games. This was most likely not a nice thing. In truth, it was a problem. I would sit and play video games with my cousin brother Ebuka and sisters instead of doing more important things like studying or communicating to other humans face-to-face, or visiting friends who came around to see me on a regular basis.
It wasn't until I stopped playing games that I understood my passion wasn't for the games themselves (though I do enjoy them). My passion is for growth, for being good at something and then striving to improve. The games themselves—the graphics, the stories—were enjoyable, but I could live without them. I thrive on competition, with myself.
And when I applied that intense desire for self-improvement and competition to my own business and writing, things really took off.
Maybe it's something else for you. Perhaps it's efficiently organizing things, becoming immersed in a fantasy world, teaching someone something, or overcoming technical challenges. Whatever it is, look not only at the activities that keep you awake at night, but also at the cognitive principles that underpin those activities. Because they are easily transferable.
You must first suck at something and have no idea what you're doing before you can be good at it and do something worthwhile. That is self-evident. And to suck at something and have no idea what you're doing, you have to disgrace yourself in some way, frequently repeatedly. And most individuals avoid embarrassing themselves because it stinks.
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