What Gives You Purpose in Life?
As a group of educated and successful people, what gives you purpose in life? What keeps you going, and why do you do what you do?
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Career Resources
$$$
Glory
Hole?
Massive assumption there
Leaving an impact to positively benefit the world
Smart ass answer? "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women"
Regular answer? "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear their lamentations" No need to go after their women. Plenty of chances to find lovely ladies at outside events. Ok that was still a little smartass.
Real answer? To reach the point where none of the outside bullshit matters and I can just piss off. In the meantime, working on solving certain financial/legal puzzles so no one can commit any screwery that'd stop anyone else from not being able to honestly achieve that same goal.
By reaching a point where outside bs doesn't matter, would you say that you are pursuing some sort of peace of mind?
In a roundabout way. So you could say what gives me purpose is reaching the point where I don't have to have one for anyone else. Of course, I have enough of a spine to feel the need to do the work to get there properly (purpose). But getting to the point where I just do whatever I feel like doing that day and again, not beholden to anyone else's repsonsibility. Not saying go out and breaking laws or not paying what I owe. But like moving off to an island and just hanging out instead of playing rat race between the finances, the politics, the legal stuff.
Outperforming my older brothers
Probably two to three different things. Career / work / banking / finance are not among them.
Sex and girls
The implication being that your sex isn’t with girls
i) Doing good works for others
ii) Knowing that my suffering has a purpose and an eternal reward
agree on both (Catholic gang). I'm trying to align my career that ties those principles within the financial realm, been volunteering with some Catholic credit unions and things like that. It's amazing how small-scale, but impactful responsible access to credit can be to people. Really makes me wonder whether the endless pursuit of material goods is worth it.
Catholic gang member here. What I said above about not owing anyone else is also rooted in the fact I can then devote to others of my own volition instead. So instead of A2D, hard agree.
Maximization of personal enjoyment, however that might manifest itself in any given moment, before the lights go out.
What kinds of things give you the most personal enjoyment?
does this imply you seek instant gratification?...however most rewarding things often come with delayed gratification
1 answer for me: friends.
Hedonism leads to dissatisfaction. You can buy a fancy car or a big house and it'll make you feel good for a couple of weeks, maybe even a couple of months if you're lucky. Then it becomes the "new normal", you slowly stop caring about it, and you start chasing after the next thing. This is pretty meaningless and unsatisfying (for me).
I don't care about power. I have no desire to have power over others, besides the fact that I like to make high-level decisions.
I don't care about societal impact. Respectfully, I care about people close to me much more than people I don't know. To the extent that if there was a Trolley Problem scenario where it was 1 friend vs 5 random people I'd probably choose the friend. That's how important my friends are to me.
I don't care about "looking good" in front of others. I'll do what I must in order to get ahead, but I won't spend lots of money or effort just to impress people. I believe that I pick friends who respect me regardless of what I wear or drive, and I really don't care about what anyone else thinks.
So yeah. The only thing I really care about in life is having good friends and spending lots of time with them. My motivation for doing my job and getting ahead in my career is that I would like to retire early and settle down. This doesn't mean that I'm unmotivated. On the contrary, I am highly motivated to achieve this as soon as possible.
Contributing the most I possibly can to mankind in this lifetime.
Do you have any plans to do that? If so, what are they?
Haha that's kind of the hard part. I have a couple product ideas that I think people will love. If none of those take off, I'll work my way up in a company I find interesting and do as much as I can there. And maybe down the line I'll go into public office.
My plans are a little ill-defined right now, but whatever I do, I want it to improve the most lives possible. I'm confident I'll figure it out along the way.
Self-actualization and having a positive impact on other people's lives, especially my family.
I felt like I was having a hard time at 18 and wanted to know the purpose of life. So, I decided to have a talk with God. I went out to Swami's beach in Encinitas and took 150 Tylenol and 150 Ibuprofen. The most dangerous was the Tylenol, which killed my liver. I woke up in ICU with my family surrounded by me in tears. They said my liver might fail in a few days and that they were putting me on the transplant list. I felt like a piece of dog shit doing this to my family. I felt selfish. Then the next day the doctor told me my liver count was normal and seemed like an error. They ran the tests again and my liver miraculously bounced back. Then I had to go to mandatory psyc inpatient at 18 years old with middle aged crazy people and addicts.
Not trying to probe, but are we talking about 150mg Tylenols 3's which would decidly be out there or something like straight up 150 Tylenols period? Also, the liver is the most resilient of all as I can atest to, So I'm glad it pulled around for you too.
It was 150 max strength Tylenols maybe 500mg each or more................ I should be dead.
Pride, spite, greed, and lust.
My man knows whats up
No one said family which shocked me. My family brought me into this world and have been there for every step. My mum moved to a whole new country as a single parent with 100€ to her name. She met my adopted father who sacrificed so much for a kid that wasn’t even his own. My parents sacrificed so much happiness to put their kids first. They would go hungry so that we would eat and never blamed us. My goal is money, but it’s not so I can buy a sports car, or some 10 bedroom mansion. It’s so I can buy my mum her first house, pay for my sister to go to dance school which has been her dream for 16 years. It’s so my 4 year old godson and future children never have to experience the feeling of turning down their dream schools because they can’t afford it. When I’m on my death bed, I’m not gonna look around and be proud of my Mercedes, or my watches. I will look at the family I left behind and all their success and happiness that started from the hard work I put in.
Health, wealth, hitting my goals
Feel free to shit on my answer however i'll give my prospective. Life is short no one knows how long you have on the earth it could be 1 day or 73 years who knows. However life is fairly short, with that being said what gives me purpose is being happy and if I am not happy it's because I am pursuing that happiness. Everyday in the morning and everyday at night I ask myself when ill have the happiness and am I one step closer towards it. If I am closer towards being happy then I am fulfilling my purpose if I didn't do anything to help me pursue my purpose (which is to be happy) well then I am failing to complete that purpose. This is what gets me going out of bed everyday. Some people will say it's money or status, hell some might say it's because of both; and there is nothing wrong with that. However life is an adventure what you make of it is up to you but I can tell you my purpose, it's to find happiness and be happy. That's it. What is happiness? Enjoying life in ALL of its aspects (work, social, family etc). This is what gets me out of bed every morning and gives me purpose and when I lay my head on my pillow every night knowing that I am one step closer and accomplishing my purpose I can rest easy even if its just for just a few moments this is my 2 cents but then again I may have lost touch with reality and may be caught up in my own reality....
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