Don’t Figure Out Your Purpose — Start Living Instead (the Real Purpose of Life)
Exploring the balance between reflection and immersion
How long do we need to keep brooding on the meaning of life until we allow ourselves to live? …We must stop deciphering every last venture and start absorbing what’s right here, right now. — Stephan Joppich
This quote inspired me to dig deeper and write this post (which was originally published on Basil’s Letters).
Boxing workouts have always been my favourite type of workouts.
I’d pick a video from YouTube, play it through my Bluetooth speakers, and follow along in the tiny but sufficient space in my room.
Shadowboxing became an escape. But it also didn’t feel enough.
I wanted to hit something — to feel my fists make contact with a solid object. I wanted to learn boxing for real.
But two big things were stopping me:
- I’ve never been comfortable in the gym (too many people).
- Boxing is ‘outside’ of my personality — it’s just not something other people expect me to do.
So, a few years later, I’m still just punching the air in my room with the blinds rolled down so the window neighbours can’t see.
Perfect Is the Enemy of Good
Most people — all people — want to live a full life.
To do things they enjoy, try new things, and meet interesting people.
But they never take the first step to sign up for a boxing class or start that side hustle.
They think they have to figure it out first before they do something. (How to feel at ease in the gym. How to write something other people will read.)
Oftentimes this translates to finding their life’s purpose.
“I need to figure out my purpose so that I can go all in on it.”
So they prioritise reflection. Thinking. Pondering. Daydreaming. Wondering.
But in trying to figure out the perfect action to take, they never take a good action at all.
Perfect is the enemy of good. We reflect too much and immerse too little.
The truth is, I could invest in some boxing gloves and a punching bag and DIY it myself at home. But no, my mind wants to ‘do it right’ and pay a coach at a gym.
I’m not saying it’s wrong to reflect.
Reflection helps one improve through self-awareness. It’s how I figured out the mental roadblocks that are preventing me from going to the gym.
But there’s a point where we’ll have to immerse — to live life in the first person instead of the third person. To take action in the present moment.
“But I HAVE to Figure Out My Purpose!”
Life is not defined by one giant stroke of the brush.
It’s made of many tiny strokes and you won’t know what you’re painting until you’re 80 years old, when you take a step back to look at your canvas.
Purpose, therefore, is not a single eternal construct you find when you’re 20 years old.
It’s malleable and ever-changing. It’s what you make it out to be.
Life is absurd, meaningless, and objective. But our brains are life-tamers, meaning-makers, and subjective.
So it tricks you into thinking you have to find your purpose.
But have you ever considered that reflection might be a form of procrastination?
You’re thinking about what you could’ve been. I am exactly what I should’ve been. — David Goggins
While you’re thinking about ‘who could I become?’, others are doing.
The Purpose of Life Is to Live
And it’s hard to live if you’re always wondering how to live.
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. — Albert Camus
Life is a fragile balance of reflection + immersion. (Remember the seesaw?)
Finding that balance is not a one-off thing — it’s a lifelong attempt every day.
But every time you find the sweet spot, you’ll find that life is more vivid and fulfilling.
You stop being chained by your purpose like a dog on a leash and start expanding your realm of living.
Expand Your Consciousness
Traditional thinking says purpose leads to action.
To expand your consciousness means to take action, period. Not to figure out a purpose, but simply to live.
Who knows? Maybe action leads to purpose too.
Here’s how to do it.
1. Opposite of Default
If your brain says ‘no’ by default, stop and consider ‘yes’.
If the thing falls within the boundaries you set for yourself (e.g. no drugs or alcohol), say yes. There’s no good reason not to.
The inability to say no is largely about approval-seeking — people imagine that if they say no, they won’t be loved by others. The inability to say yes, however — to intimacy, a job opportunity, an alcohol program — is more about lack of trust in oneself. Will I mess this up? Will this turn out badly? Isn’t it safer to stay where I am? — Lori Gottlieb
This is how you build trust in yourself — by inviting new experiences to interrupt your patterns of daily life.
If this seems too scary, simply choose to do one new thing every week. It could be as small as taking a new route, or as big as signing up for your first marathon.
Lean into the uncomfortable. ‘Opposite of default’ is how we grow.
2. Embrace Transformation
It’s one thing to lean into the uncomfortable, it’s another to let it change you.
I‘ve talked about how most people go through life as one character, never unlocking or realising other ways of living — thinking — exist.
When an uncomfortable situation pushes us to see other alternatives, many of us resist it because of the certainty trap.
Why would we trade in comfort and certainty for pain and the unknown? (Even if that transformation is a good one.)
We can’t have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same. — Lori Gottlieb
The certainty trap keeps you in old ways.
Imagine your favourite movie or show. In every movie, the hero undergoes the hero’s journey.
They always emerge on the other side transformed in some way.
If life were a movie, most people start their hero journey but stop at the transformation. After they solve the problem (or push it away), they relapse into their old self.
If this happened in the movie, it’s called bad writing. Because then what was the point of the whole movie?
So, embrace your new life and identity. Only then can you complete the hero’s journey.
3. Ideal Tuesdays
If you have no idea where to start, try this reflective exercise.
Remember, it takes two — reflection and immersion — to tango. Proactively take steps to turn this reflection into action.
This is how ideal Tuesdays work:
Your life is made up of a series of ordinary Tuesdays. Figure out what your ideal normal Tuesday looks like. Because if you can have an amazing Tuesday, you’ll probably have an amazing life. — Tim Ferriss
Create 2 ‘Ideal Tuesdays’ — one for right now and one for 3 years in the future.
This is your roadmap.
Current Tuesday → ideal Tuesday right now → ideal Tuesday 3 years later.
Conclusion
Stop trying to find your life’s purpose.
If you waste time trying to figure everything out now, you’ll have no time left to live.
Socrates once said the unexamined life is not worth living. But the unlived life is not worth examining.
So stop examining so much.
You don’t need a purpose to dictate your actions. You just need to immerse in one action, then another, then another, in each present moment.
If you’re lucky, your purpose (which is ever-changing) may reveal itself then.
Book recommendation(s):
- Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl (Memoir/Psychology/Philosophy): How to use purpose to fuel you, not paralyse you. Frankl didn’t figure out one grand purpose he was meant to fulfil — he lived and did things, and his purpose for that moment in life became clear.
Thanks for reading! This post was originally published on Basil’s Letters, a free weekly newsletter where you’ll transform book knowledge into life wisdom (and get book recommendations along the way).
