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The Purpose Of Life Is Not Happiness: It’s Usefulness
For the longest time, I believed that there’s only one purpose of life: And that is to be happy.
Right? Why else go through all the pain and hardship? It’s to achieve happiness in some way.
And I’m not the only person who believed that. In fact, if you look around you, most people are pursuing happiness in their lives.
That’s why we collectively buy shit we don’t need, go to bed with people we don’t love and try to work hard to get the approval of people we don’t like.
How I found, lost, and rediscovered my purpose
I want to tell you a story about purpose in three parts.
Let’s start.
Part I: The trap of the social script
Most of us start our lives on autopilot.
It’s not because we’re lazy. It’s because we’ve been trained to follow “The Script.”
You know the one: Get the degree. Get the job. Get the promotion. Make some money. And so forth.
I followed the script perfectly until I was 28. From the outside, my life looked fine. Inside, I always felt that something was missing.
Why Losing My Purpose Almost Derailed Me
I went through a little crisis of purpose over the last year.
You see, I started writing full-time in 2015. And I pretty much dedicated my entire life to building my career. I looked at it this way. First, improve your skills, then earn money, and finally, invest it so you no longer have to worry about financial constraints and paying bills.
I worked on my skills by learning and immediately applying them. I committed to reading 2 hours a day and writing pretty much the rest of my day. I think the best way to learn is to do something publicly. You can write as much as you want behind closed doors, but you will lack the challenge you need to improve yourself.
Writing publicly is scary. People might not like it. Or worse, you might get ignored. But you need that type of friction or pressure to improve. If there’s nothing at stake, why would you push yourself harder to improve?
A Lesson on Purpose from LeBron James
I was watching LeBron James after he scored his 50,000th career point against the New Orleans Pelicans on March 4th.
Hitting 50,000 points is almost impossible. To put that in context, Michael Jordan—widely considered the greatest by many—finished his career with 32,292 points.
In the post-game interview, Lebron was asked, “How are you doing this at such a high level, at this stage of your career?”
Lebron is 40. And he still plays the game with the enthusiasm of an 18-year-old.