Day 3: False Purpose

Today you will learn about the different false purposes including pleasure, status & power, money, causes, cynicism, and personal optimization or self development that will sometimes blind us to our true purpose, why it matters if you are pursuing a false purpose, and how you can still achieve these other desires through the pursuit of a true purpose.

Summary

What is a false purpose?

The existential void you may feel with no purpose seems to me to be a consequence of the following facts:

• First, in contrast to an animal, no drives and instincts tell man what he must do.
• Second, in contrast to former times, no conventions, traditions, and values tell him what he should do; and often he does not even know what he basically wishes to do. Instead, either he wishes to do what other people do (conformism), or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

A false sense of purpose is when we pursue something to fill the existential void of a loss of meaning in our life, but the object of our pursuit does not actually fill the void.

• As humans, we need some sort of sense of direction, a way to guide and restrict our behavior to tell us what we should do in life.
• We need to feel larger than just the individuals we are and connected to something that transcends us.
• And this is the drive that sends you looking for a purpose.

But sometimes people seek to create purpose and a feeling of transcendence in a very cheap way, to find it in the easiest and most accessible way with the least amount of effort and such people give themselves over to false purposes, Those that merely supply the illusion of purpose and transcendence.

• A real purpose comes from within, an idea, a calling, a sense of mission that we feel personally and intimately connected to . It is our very own purpose. We may have been inspired by others, but nobody imposed it upon us and nobody can take it away.
• In contrast a false sense of purpose comes from an external source belief systems that we swallow whole conformity to what other people are doing.

What are the types of false purposes?

These are the most common forms of false purposes are that have appealed to humans throughout civilization:

• Pursuit of Pleasure: motivated to avoid pain and finding as much pleasure as possible in our time outside work like sex, stimulants, entertainment, eating, shopping, gambling, technology, social media, festivals and games distracting us from the reality of life.
• Pursuit of Status and Power: chasing the feeling of being enlarged, important, dependent on the number of people applauding them, the size of the army they command, and the crowd of people that serve them.
• Money: entering pursuits that make the most money the fastest, aiming for the biggest paychecks where your career choices may have no connection to your actual inclinations, competition becomes extremely fierce, thinking is short term, which can lead to terrible long term consequences for your life.
• Causes or Cults: following someone else's ideology because you have so much of a void in your own belief systems or sense of purpose so you just swallow theirs, with a need to gratify our egos or vent ugly emotions.
• Cynicism: we believe in no cause, that there's no meaning to life, that life is absurd, meaningless, and random. It's where you continue to hold onto that void of purpose and instead make THAT your purpose.
• Pure optimization or self-actualization: when people are confusing the tools of personal development that are gonna help them down the path to their purpose as the end goals.

All of these false senses of purpose are exacerbated by our focus on short time horizons. Our modern day society's mixture of status seeking, insecurity, self promotion and superficial values create a culture where pursuing short-term victories are at the expense of enduring aspirations.

Why does it matter if you have a false sense of purpose?

A false sense of purpose is temporary, fleeting, and will eventually leave you unmotivated, unfulfilled, or worse in existential despair.

• These quick routes to fortune and happiness often don't actually lead to their desired material ends because any success in life requires sustained effort.
• The more lasting and fulfilling kinds of success require a deeper reflection on the purpose that underlie the efforts.
• The accumulation of material success without an ultimate concern, some larger purpose that the material success is meant to serve is a prescription for dispiriting sense of emptiness once the initial glow of self gratification is worn off.
• And when we do this, not only do we lose sense of what's worthwhile to strive for you also deplete your main source of enduring motivation.

How to still achieve our desires in the pursuit of purpose

When we're trying to reach any level of success in life our aim should be towards purpose.

• Other items like pleasure, status and power, money, and self-actualization are either a side effect of us fulfilling our purpose, or they're a means to help us reach that purpose, but they're not end goals in and of themselves.

‍

Activity

Evaluate your own life and where you might be pursuing a false sense of purpose:

• Where are you pursuing pleasure, just because it's pleasure?
• Are you chasing status and power or money?
• Have you swallowed somebody else's cause rather than coming up with your own?
• Have your reached a point of cynicism about life where you believe in nothing at all?
• Are you just trying to self develop and get better and better, but in the service of nothing?

‍

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.