It's 2022. Do You Know Your Purpose?
Time To Discover It
Welcome to the YouTopian Journey. Each week I will be sharing unique wisdom that can help you in the daily battles that we must all fight in the game of life. This week we discuss why you must know your purpose, especially now in 2022.
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Now onto the good stuff.
PURPOSE NEEDED
“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it”-Buddha
You can see it among the populace. It is behind the fake smiles and the happy comments on social media. It exists within the pit of many, a void that no matter what, cannot be filled. More importantly, you may have felt it yourself.
The gaping whole.
The abyss.
The lacking that cannot be addressed.
In a world of abundance and where everything and everyone seems to be a swipe away, the most important possession still eludes us.
It isn’t the latest iPhone.
It isn’t the newest video game.
It isn’t swag or bravado.
It isn’t opportunity or talent or resources.
It is purpose, true purpose.
And try as you might, you can’t fake this.
Purpose is the one true thing we can call our own. While our possessions can be lost, our friendships weakened and eventually forgotten, our titles taken away, purpose is something that can never be stolen from us. It is something that is unique to each and every one of us.
But it is missing in so many. The multitude are lacking the one possession that can truly change their lives, and even their society, for the better.
Instead, purpose has been replaced. In some it is filled by addiction to bad habits. In others it is filled with endless content, further dulling themselves into oblivion. Worst of all, many have found a false purpose and this has led them to fall prey to the machinations and manipulations of others. With the coming metaverse, the danger will only increase.
It is enough pressure to make even the strongest among us fall prey to the stresses and the inevitable lingering questions that fill us with dread and lead to an emptiness of existence.
What must I do?
Why am I here?
What is the point?
What does this all mean?
This cannot last, especially not for you.
“The human being cannot live in a condition of emptiness for very long: if he is not growing toward something, he does not merely stagnate; the pent-up potentialities turn into morbidity and despair, and eventually into destructive activities.”-Rollo May
Purpose is needed as it gives one a goal to strive for, a task to accomplish, and a meaning for existing.
Throughout history, people have survived everything from criticisms to cataclysms. Whether it was a pandemic or a pandemonium, certain individuals were not only able to weather the storm and survive, but thrive.
Why?
Purpose.
Some far-off goal.
Some future task that needed to be accomplished.
Something that made the individual survive any “how” as they had a proper “why.”
This is needed now more than ever.
Why?
Because we live in a purposeless age. The multitude work jobs that have no meaning. They partake in activities that dull their senses and kill time. They swipe in every direction, hoping to arrive at some content that does nothing other than to fill the void.
This is mentally damaging to say the least.
“If one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment…all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning.”-Fyodor Dostoevsky
This is why purpose is so essential in 2022 and the coming years!
Purpose coats our actions in armor. It protects us from wasting time. It allows us to push past obstacles and challenges that would hinder and flat out stop the multitude in their paths. It keeps us focused on the future and prevents us from getting bogged down in the minutia of the present. It is a necessary ingredient for not only success or contentment, but for existence.
“When losing his hope and purpose, a person slowly becomes a monster.”-Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Do not concern yourself with the ethereal and philosophical questions of a purposeful existence. It will only bog you down and delay you. You must act. You must go forward in spite of the dangers, the resistance from your peers, and the possibility of failure. This is the power of purpose. It gives you wings to fly while the multitude remain crawling, unaware of any other way.
Through your purpose, you can show them that not only is there another way, but that you can lead that purposeful charge.
“For what purpose humanity is there should not even concern us: why you are there, that you should ask yourself: and if you have no ready answer, then set for yourself goals, high and noble goals, and perish in pursuit of them! I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.”-Friedrich Nietzsche
PURPOSE HURTS
“If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.”-Charles Bukowski
There is an elephant in the room. An unavoidable and inescapable fact. Something that is so paramount yet so overlooked by those who preach the need for purpose.
Purpose hurts.
It cuts deep and the wounds cannot be seen by others. Other injuries are noticeable. A business or academic failure, the loss of a loved one, a doomed relationship, and a physical injury can be grieved with the public.
But the pain that results from pursing an inner purpose that few can recognize and even fewer can respect? That is too much for the multitude to handle. That purposeful pain is a pound of flesh that many will not willingly suffer through.
This is precisely why so many refuse to follow their purpose.
Why?
Because purpose involves starting at the bottom. It requires admitting that you know nothing about a specific topic that you are drawn to and that you cannot explain. Purpose involves a willingness to endure the long periods of learning, failures, dashed hopes and self-doubt that come with the pursuit of purpose.
This is difficult in our age, where everyone appears to be a self-made and self-taught expert on a variety of subjects. Few, if any, want to appear foolish in a topic that the world seems to know.
But the purpose seekers know otherwise. They know that anything of value is going to require blood, sweat, and tears. They are willingly to suffer for this purpose that drives them because it is meaningful.
“Man, the bravest of animals, and the one most accustomed to suffering, does not repudiate suffering as such; he desires it, he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind so far.”-Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
The strength of one’s purpose is enough to rival any obstacle and any setback. It is a superpower that when properly harnessed, can not only change the individual but the world itself.
But you must be willing to accept the pain that comes with the territory. You must be open to the loneliness, failures, and setbacks that are inevitable. You must have the capacity to endure for your purpose.
It will be worth it in the end.
I promise.
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”-Victor Frankl
BE A PILGRIM OF PURPOSE
“It takes so little, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything loses meaning.”-Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
When your purpose is discovered, when you have become driven with fulfilling it with all of your heart, you have a responsibility to inspire and motivate others.
You must become a pilgrim of purpose.
Why?
Because so many are lost in the void. They have an endless abyss that they cannot fill. You can see it in the lengths they take to impress strangers on their social media that they will never meet. You can see it in the blank stares they give you when you attempt to have a meaningful conversation. You can see it in the negativity that they express when you talk of lofty goals and deals.
They float from fad to fad, following every trend on social media until it fades away. They have nothing to center them, no goal to keep them grounded and no task at hand to fixate their focus. Today it will be an NFT. Next week it will be real estate. Next year? No one can predict, not even them. As they make plans for a grand life, life doesn’t comply with their timeline. Life just continues on at the same pace.
Unfortunately for the multitude, the void is their purpose.
“Man would rather have the void for his purpose than to be void of purpose”- Friedrich Nietzsche
The pull of this void is strong. The power of it is formidable. It can destroy even the most mentally fortified individual. It can reduce our inner fortress to dust.
This is precisely why you must be the pilgrim of purpose that the world needs!
You must battle this void. You cannot let this void enter your life. You must be a pilgrim of purpose and let your light shine and inspire others. Through your actions, you can prove to the world that there is a better way. Through your results, you can show that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Through your belief, you can inspire others. You can show them just how a strong will can defeat a strong won’t.
“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”-Rumi
One of the key themes of YouTopian Journey is heroism. It is a trait that continues to be lacking in the modern world, with many giving into fear, anxiety and conformity. Yet many fail to realize that they can be heroic in their own way. Being a pilgrim of purpose is one such example.
And the best part?
You don’t need to don a cape.
You don’t need to possess superhuman powers.
You don’t need to be born with an X-factor.
You just need to motivate, inspire, guide, and even help others. You can do this by following your purpose, wherever it takes you. By doing this, you can be the hero that your peers and community needs.
You can rescue them from the void. You can come to the ultimate realization that your purpose may just be to give others purpose.
Give them a good one!
“When we look at the varieties of human behavior under extreme and pressing circumstances, we see how easily man can be subdued, and at the same time we see that certain factors seem to have a positive effect on his morale, keeping him from despair and collapse. When these factors are operative, the spirit revives and people are enabled to live with integrity in spite of dangerous circumstances. There are many such morale boosters. . . Perhaps the most effective is the sense of having some mission and inner goal. This ideal with which a man identifies can be love of the native land, love of freedom or justice, or even the thought of hate and revenge. Whatever it is, at the moment of calamity a guiding idea is as much needed as mere physical strength and endurance.”-Dr. Joost A. M. Meerloo, The Rape of the Mind
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Founder Fortitude is back and we are kicking off 2022 with an important topic, failure. We all face it, especially founders. Founders fail when they raise capital, when they attempt to scale, when there isn't a product market fit. But what happens when you fail when everything went right? What does it mean to fail after raising millions of dollars in venture capital? How does one fail successfully? Join Sandra Golbreich, Shaun Gold, and Jatin Modi in an episode where we discuss how failure is mandatory for founders. More importantly, we will dive into how failure can be transformed into a stepping stone for success. You can register for free here.
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I’m Shaun Gold and if you are reading this, you are already on your journey. Catch you next week.
I am where this cycle stops. This is my chosen purpose. I knew the moment I looked into my daughters eyes that raising my children and not walking away from them was my destiny. I know it sounds simple, but to me it is my motivation, my reason for living. I will be the first in 4 generations to not walk away from my children and let someone else raise them.
Maybe it gives them more strength, purpose to stand up to peer pressure/self consciousness to have a mission other than themselves?