How do I find my real purpose in life?
This is a great question. I started questioning myself that when I was 16, and I still do not have an answer for that - I'm 63 now. For this post, I will go over an explanation of why I think the question "How do I find purpose in my life?" is an unhelpful question and then I will give you some practical tips that has helped me overcome the feeling of meaninglessness. From what I have experienced and from what I have tried, I've come to the conclusion that you cannot "find" a purpose. You "create" it. When I first heard that, it didn't really make sense to me so I'll try to do my best and explain. As I was trying to 'find' my purpose, I adopted an idea that if I was able to articulate this purpose then I would finally be motivated to accomplish goals in my life and become a driven individual. If I found this purpose, then I would be more valuable as a human being. If I found this purpose, I would find joy in life. If I found this purpose, I would finally have a reason other than "going to school" for getting up in the morning. If I found this purpose. life would make sense. It would be my magic pill - just take one dose and everything will be okay. And sometimes, I still wish that this magic pill existed and I wish I could find it by just answering some questions or doing some exercise. If it exists, I would go to great lengths to find it. One idea that helped me came from Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents. He questioned why we do not ask about the purpose of dogs, yet we ask about the purpose of humans. Dogs are just alive, and they live. Humans are the same. We are alive, and we live. What does this mean? It means you don't have to be chained to this idea that there's a predetermined purpose for you and that you have to go out and find it. It means that you are free to createmeaning, you are free to create your purpose! You are free to create anything, how exciting is that?! So now we've changed the question from "how do I find my purpose?" to "how can I create my purpose?".