Day 2: Lack of Purpose

Today you will learn to identify the emotions and states of being associated with a lack of purpose in life, understand why you may feel this way, why it's important to recognize these feelings in yourself, and how to assess whether you feel a sense of purpose in your life.

Summary

What does lacking a purpose feel like?

When we don't have a purpose, we experience pain that we cannot deny or repress.

And the pains that you might feel come in several forms:

• Boredom: Not engaged in your life and turning to various distractions, entertainment, or additions to occupy your restless mind.
• Insecurity: You are aware of the discrepancy between your dreams and reality. You envy those who have pursued theirs, but don't admit the things you don't know and would need to improve in order to reach yours.
• Anxiety & Stress: As life's difficulties arise, you may be avoiding the responsibility of addressing these. As a result, you lack the skills necessary to manage stressful situations, deal with failure, and make tough choices, leading to overwhelm.
• Depression: We want our life to mean something, to have weight and significance to what we have done, but without that conviction, we experience an emptiness and depression that we often ascribe to other things, rather than realizing that it comes from a lack of purpose.
• Apathy: You begin asking yourself what the point of any of it is anyways, often turning to cynicism or nihilism where you would just rather tear it all down and watch the world burn.

Why do you feel this way?

Understand this, the feeling of being lost and confused is nobody's fault. It is a natural reaction to having been born into times a great change in the underlying meaning structures of modern society.

The systems that you live in now were not built for individuality. They were built with standardization in mind, a one size fits all template for everyone. But the problem with the standardization mindset is that it sees individuality as a problem.

• The goal of all standardization is to maximize the efficiency of a system of production.
• The prime mechanism by which standardization accomplishes this mission is through the elimination of individual variation.
• Standardization establishes fixed processes that convert fixed inputs into identical outputs without deviation or flex.‍
• But nowhere in this standardized mindset does the idea of fulfillment appear. Because fulfillment depends on individuality.
• The chief commandment for achieving success within the standardized mindset is the idea to be the same as everyone else only better. This mindset and these systems were never designed for personal fulfillment.

The fact that this standardized mindset does not prioritize personal fulfillment explains why you may have the feelings of disaffection, restlessness, and uncertainty.

Our only solution to this is to find a higher sense of purpose, a mission that will provide us with our own direction. Not that of our parents, our friends, our peers, our society, the mission is intimately connected to our individuality, to what makes us unique.

Why is purpose important for our wellbeing?

When we have purpose all of those negative emotions that plague us in our aimlessness are neutralized or even turned around into positive ones.

• We learn to embrace boredom specifically when we're practicing skills that are gonna help us towards our purpose.
• We feel much less insecure because of our overall sense that we are advancing and realizing some are all of our potential.
• As we deal with greater levels of anxiety, uncertainty, and making daily decisions, we learn to control those levels of anxiety and stress, not becoming overwhelmed by them.
• We're less prone to depression because we feel excited and lifted above the pettiness of daily life when we are one a mission.

But beyond the emotions, your life depends on purpose.

• Victor Frankel believed even under normal conditions, a strong meaning orientation is health promoting and life prolonging.
• And in the case of extreme circumstances, even life preserving, as observed in his book Man's Search for Meaning.

How to asses if you have purpose in your life

Use the following resources, derived from the practice of logo therapy, to help determine whether you have a sense of purpose in your life:

• The Meaning in Life Questionnaire: Assessing the presence of and search for meaning in life
• The PIL (Purpose in Life) Test

Additionally, take the time journal responses to the following questions presented from the Path to Purpose by William Damon.

• Tell me a little about yourself. What kind of person are you?
• What kinds of things do you really care about? Why do you care about these things?
• What’s most important to you in your life? Why is that important to you?
• Do you have any long-term goals? What are a few of the more important ones? Why are these goals important to you?
• If no, why do you prefer not to have goals? What does it mean to you not to have goals?
• If yes, Are you doing anything now to achieve these goals or objectives? If yes, What are you doing? If no, What has kept you back from doing something to meet these goals?
• What does it mean to have a good life?
• What does it mean to be a good person?
• What would you say you spend most of your energy on these days?
• If you were looking back on your life, how would you want to be remembered? What would you want to be remembered for? Why?
• Do you look up to anyone?
• Do you have a mentor? Are there qualities in this mentor, or in others, that you admire?
• Has it been hard for you to remain dedicated to this aim? Will it be difficult for you to remain committed down the road?
• Are there qualities that you possess that helped you in achieving the goals that are important to you? Are there qualities that you possess that have made it more difficult?
• Picture yourself at, say, 40 years of age. What will you be doing?
• Who will be in your life? What will be important to you? What will be going on in the area that concerns you?
• What are your plans in the immediate future, say the next few years?
• Is there anything you would like to add about what’s important to you or what you are trying to accomplish in life?
• Summing up, what do you think matters most to you at this time? Will that still matter most to you as you get older? Why/Why not?

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Activity

Assess if you have a sense of purpose in your life using the questionnaires above. If you don't feel a sense of purpose, identify the other emotions you may be feeling as a result.

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Skill Lesson Mastered

Demonstrate mastery of the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson by applying it to the above activity. If, and only if, you have a full understanding and have mastered the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson, select the next lesson in the navigation.