I’ve found out my purpose
And it’s rather simple
The modern society, backed by strong economies, convey the idea we should Start with Why. This “why” translates the purpose of our life. An enthusiastic, impacting, and world-saving duty was established for ourselves. Everything perfectly aligned with the core of our hearts. The idea is great but hides a few problems.
You don’t know what’s your purpose
Many of us don’t know what are our gifts. What is your purpose? What you’ve been made for? This awareness is rather difficult to find. What would you do if money wasn’t necessary or if you had abundant money?
If you’re going to say “I would travel the world”, please, close this tab. I don’t deserve a reader lazy that much. The truth is that this question goes straight to the core of passions and inapt abilities we often don’t exactly know.
You’re lucky, you know your purpose!
You know what you’ve been called for in this life. A life-changing duty has been assigned to you. Even more, you like the scope of work. Great, let's put hands on deck!
Then you realize you need to sit, do some research, paperwork, build a presentation and a spreadsheet. You thought you would be changing the future of 6 billion people. And now you realized you need to do bureaucratic work as everyone and the purpose becomes less exciting.
Simon Sinek is not wrong in his argument. The problem is that people often misunderstand the central idea and over-romanticize the idea of having a purpose. Whatever is your purpose, whether you work with what you like or not, it will not be always as pleasant as you wish.
The nature of work is being painful. Simply because you need to do it regardless of your appetite for it.
If you’re a multimillionaire football player, you won’t be able to enjoy all your money drinking all day. Instead, you’ll likely be on the pitch running under a sunny sky at 40 ºC.
Even if you say your purpose is to make money with sex, you wouldn’t like it. You would need to do it despite your desire, the person, etc.
The unachievable purpose to hide your mediocrity
Once I was in a course, and during one of those dynamics, one attendant told me his/her purpose was to educate people in Africa. We were in Brazil, a rather problematic country.
Low levels of education, issues in public health, public transportation, violence, bad politics and terrible politicians, people starving and over 60k dying per year. A country that kills more than a war.
Many people needing education right at our side, and the attendant was willing to educate people in Africa as his/her purpose of life.
I question myself: where did we lose the ability to think logically?
Are we becoming too much romantic because of inspirational TED Talks?
Or are we simply aiming for unachievable goals, that will be always 10 years ahead, while endless play-pretend we’re planning and planning, and planning? That should be comfortable!
If you never work, then you never fail! Fantastic job done in becoming a bullet-proof master planner!
I see this as mediocrity and we need to avoid that at all costs. The world is made by doers.
Our purpose should be adaptable
Life is dynamic. It’s perfectly fine if we don’t have the same purpose throughout life. We change, our goals change, our knowledge change, our habits change. It’s expected that, among all your transformations, your purpose will transform along with you.
Your moment of life dictates how noble your purpose can be. If you’re still starving, you can’t have the same purpose of changing the world like Bill Gates or Elon Musk. That’s not for you. You might, eventually, but not now.
If you’re starving, you’re at the base of the hierarchy of needs of Abraham Maslow. You’re still fighting for your basic needs. Your purpose is to feed, to sleep, to find shelter.
Once I realized that, I felt immense relief. I understood that, although I dream big, I’m not yet in a position to change the world.
Your most basic purpose is to survive and finish the month without debt. Only then do you start to aim more.
When you become able to save some money, reinvest in yourself. Invest in affordable sources of knowledge:
- hands-on courses that teach you skills to increase your wage, to sell more services, to sell more solutions;
- books that will give you solid theoretical foundations from the greatest minds in human history.
Then you move forward, seeking more ambitious goals.
My purpose is simple: is to make more money, build wealth, be able to provide for my family, and impact the world with the fruits of my work.
If ethical, it’s not important which work — that’s the gold I wasn’t able to see before.
Any work in essence creates value from scratch. Your free, worthless, time becomes something valuable. A product, a service, a solution to solve a real problem.
Don’t fall for this romantic trap as I did. The noble purposes will be ahead, for now, you just need to survive and grow.
