Hey Guys! Sorry for the late release of this post. No reasons just my mistake. I will try to not repeat it again, but this one was big considering that many of you really wanted to hear this one out. On the bright side, you got two extra days to answer all the heavy questions of the last post. Anyways, here are the 7 strange questions that will help you find your life purpose.
What Struggle or Sacrifice are you willing to take?
Everything comes at a cost. Nothing is pleasurable all the time. Being an entrepreneur without being able to handle failure and becoming an author without being able to handle rejects isn’t going to get you far. It will actually end your career before it starts. You need to be ready and decide if you will be able to handle the downsides before deciding your purpose. But remember: This willingness for a particular form of struggle is your competitive advantage.
What is true about you today that would have made the 8-year old you cry?
When we are small, we love doing things just for the fun of it. Not to impress anybody, not to gain a reward but just for the fun of it. Unfortunately, the social pressures of being an adult take over this quality and we start doing things for money. For example – If you loved drawing comics and writing stories in your childhood but stopped because it didn’t pay. If your child-self asked you why you stopped making comics and you tell him that you aren’t good or it doesn’t pay. He won’t believe you and would eventually cry. It is because passion always begins with a sense of play.
What makes you forget to eat?
There is always something which we get wrapped up in so much that we forget to eat. That thing is what we love. More importantly its what we actually enjoy doing. I am not talking about doing an assignment that you forgot to do the past week because tomorrow is the deadline. If you thought about this, take out a brick and hit yourself on the head 5 times. I am talking about the thing that you makes you forget to eat without any deadline, without any pressure. When you figure out this activity, you need to look at the cognitive principle behind it and then apply it to other things. For example – I love to read mystery books. The cognitive principle behind is that I like to figure out the mystery. I applied this to coding. I imagined that I (the detective) need to find the bug (the criminal) which is ruining my program (the victim) in my code (the crime scene).
How can you better embarrass yourself?
There are things that you really want to do, but something is holding you back. Now if that thing is what others will think then you are just an idiot and are already an embarrassment to me. Take out the brick and hit yourself 10 times. But if your reasons are something else then read on. Living a life avoiding embarrassment is impossible. We must go against the herd mentality. Embrace embarrassment. An example – I have always wanted to make music but I don’t know how to play the guitar. Now that I know this I can learn it. However much I screw up and fail, I really am going to learn to play the guitar.
Feeling foolish is part of the path to achieving something important, something meaningful.
MarK Manson
How are you going to save the world?
There are many problems in the world right now. Be it our education system, economic development, domestic violence, mental health care, government corruption. All of these problems need solving. Pick a problem and start saving the world. You won’t be able to wipe out the whole problem but you will be contributing to the greater good. The feeling of making a difference which you get out of this process is what’s most important for your own happiness and fulfillment. And importance = purpose.
If you had to leave your house all day, every day, where would you go and what would you do?
If you answer this by sitting on a couch eating chips and watching the television, I suggest you stop reading this article hit yourself with a brick and keep doing this. If you do this, you will just be another person who when dead, won’t be remembered by a single person. Just a person who took up a share of precious natural resources and then died, making no measurable difference to the world. Passion is the result of action, not the cause of it. Figuring out what you are passionate about is a trial-and-error process. We need to do a particular activity before knowing whether you like it. Try out different things, trying out things will tell you what you actually like doing. Go to the library, sign up for dance class, learning to sky-dive, go and try it out.
If you know that you are going to die in a year, what will you do? How would you want to be remembered?
Death is the only thing that gives us perspective on the value of your life. Because it’s only by imagining your non-existence that you can get a sense of what is most important about your existence. Most of you will be remembered as – This is x, he slept 8 hours a day, ate 3 times a day and worked for 9 hours a day. Sounds like you? Take out the brick again. 15 times now. Harder. People don’t have a sense of direction, no purpose in their life, it’s because they don’t know what’s important to them, they don’t know what their values are.
This is it for today guys. 7 questions that will help you zero-in on your life purpose. Also when I was reviewing all of the blog posts, I kind of got the feeling that the recent posts have been too heavy. Like lots of life-related stuff and serious things. Which means I am going to lighten it all up in the next post where I am going to review the series “The Cursed Academy” by the author Holly Hook. I read it ast week and I kinda liked it, but then again – I like everything with greek mythology in it.
If you liked this post, consider subscribing to my blog, you can do that by giving me your email at the bottom of the page. Comment down bellow for requests/comments/questions/asking me why I write about stuff that even I don’t understand. I will you see next Saturday. Peace.
