How Can I Tell If My Life Purpose Is Genuine?

[Paradigm]

After doing the life purpose course, I came to the life purpose of doing a personal development blog specialized towards inner self-mastery/consciousness growth. This is the first thing that comes up when I think about what's most meaningful to me. It just seems obvious that it's the most direct way of improving the world, the most direct way to true happiness, and that there's nothing more important in life. It's also the thing that's given me the most profound insights and realizations in life. I've had many moments of clarity where I just think "holy shit, this is the most important thing I can be doing". However, I'm worried that I may be falling into a trap here. I see two possibilities. I'm either:

a) Taking on Leo's life purpose because it's all I know or because I can't think of anything better to do. I seem to do this a lot in life - I see someone who I look up to who's living an amazing life and loves their life purpose, and I tend to want to imitate them.

b) I'm genuinely passionate about this life purpose and this whole thing of "maybe it's a trap" is just resistance, a way of avoiding doing the hard work.

I took my time with all the exercises and this life purpose is what I kept coming up with. When I think about what I would do if I had all the money I needed, it would be this - developing my consciousness and pursuing self-mastery. One thing to note is that while self-development work and consciousness work has given me results that are nothing short of profound, I don't particularly find it enjoyable. I'm not waking up excited to do it - I have to force myself to do it. I only really care about the fruits of the practice.

When I think about what's most fun for me, without worrying about how meaningful it is, I come up with different things, like humor and pickup. These are things that I really love to do - that is, I love the process of doing them. I lose track of time doing these things because they're just so much fun. The results they bring are just a bonus. But I don't see these as things that will change the world in a meaningful way. So it's like I'm choosing between what's fun and what's meaningful.

How can I know if this life purpose is genuine or not? How can I know if this is a socially conditioned life purpose or if I'm just experiencing resistance to what is genuinely my passion?

[AndreiC]

I struggle with this also sometimes. 

In my personal opinion fun shouldn't really factor in, I mean work that you are passionate about and fun are not really the same thing. 

Maybe you're confusing a passion you have for fun and a good cause for a LP.

Maybe you need to find a way to reconcile these 2 into a sort of mix which will lead to something more suitable to you. Usually when you have a choice between a and b and none seems to quite fit, there's something you have to look for in the middle.

 

Anyway only you have the real answer, all anyone else can do is throw some questions and ideas at you.

 

[Paradigm]

@AndreiC "Fun shouldn't factor in" is an interesting perspective. I would have thought that fun is one of the most important things.

I have considered trying to mix two life purposes together. Right now I'm just going ahead with my current life purpose and seeing how it goes.

[AndreiC]

@Paradigm Depends what you understand by fun I suppose. 

For example, I have a lot of fun drinking beer with my friends, I wouldn't consider it important enough to link to my LP though.

[Michael569]

Why not dedicate your LP to humour then? It comes to you naturally however to many people like myself not really. We struggle with finding the fun part of life and suffer from not being able to "sell" our ideas in a fun and relaxed way.  We have all these filters of dryness and seriousness and perhaps all we need is a how to for dummies manual that would be simple, authentic and could be tailored to all individuals.  Why not become an excellent public and motivational speaker, a personal coach perhaps? You can apply that in business, in pickup, in sports and life coaching, sales. Maybe try to create few you tube videos for a start and see whether people are interested Man...the options out there are limitless. 

Maybe your LP could be, "study and practice the psychology of humour to improve people's lives". ( or whatever you make it to be). Retake the practical part of the LP and try to focus on something more concrete and see how it resonates with your answers. 

[Bodhi123]

23 hours ago, Paradigm said:

How can I know if this life purpose is genuine or not?

It is impossible for me or any other person on this forum to answer this question for you.

Look into your heart and follow your intuition that'll lead you to the answer.

[Paradigm]

@Michael569  I know what you mean about becoming dry and serious. I think that's happened to me in a way from getting too serious about the life purpose thing. But I've become more in touch with my humor lately and have been feeling better about life in general.

@Bodhi123  That is true.

 

[Michael569]

@Paradigm care to share some of your techniques for implementing more humour into life? 

[Shin]

If you see yourself crying when you think about it, there may be some truth to it.

[Paradigm]

@Michael569 I had been staying at home way too much, just working on self-development which made me overly serious. I basically just started going out to clubs and doing pickup, but focusing mainly on self-amusement, and how I can make myself laugh and have as much fun as possible. I don't care if I pull a girl or not, having fun is all that matters. So dancing as stupidly as I can on the dancefloor, opening girls with random things that I find hilarious and just letting my crazy sense of humor come out like I used to do when I was a kid. It's so freeing, like I'm in an improv class and can just do whatever I want. I realize now I had been suppressing that part of myself which is really a natural part of me. It helps to sometimes watch comedy movies or youtube channels that make me laugh the most so I get a sense of what things I find most funny.

@Shin I'm definitely not at the point of having any life purpose that could make me cry when I think about it. The most would be those moments of clarity where I think "holy shit, nothing could be more important than this" and just feel super inspired. That's the best wisdom that I have to go by at this point.

[Nahm]

@Paradigm You know what you want to do - what is fun to you. The conflict arises because you feel inclined to change the world. May I ask, why do you want to change the world?

[Paradigm]

@Nahm I actually didn't care at all about contributing to the world until doing the life purpose course. Leo stresses that contribution is what will bring a lot of joy and fulfilment, so I'm just taking his word for it. And books like The Way of the Superior Man which talk about having a purpose and "giving your gift" to the world. So I guess I've convinced myself that changing the world in some way is just something I should do as a man. I also need to earn a living somehow so it seems like I should at least do it through something I'm passionate about.

[Nahm]

@Paradigm So you know what you want to do, but are confused because you are taking someone els's word for something?  If you read your statement above, you'll probably see the continuation of your self imposed conflict. You're equating taking someone's word for something that is contrary to your own desire, then reshaping that into duality of earning a living doing something you're passionate about. Of course you should do something you're passionate about, and you probably would be doing it, if you never made the choice to let someone else throw you off course so easily. Just follow what you knew in the first place. It is in pursuing your passion and dreams that you shows others they can do that also. Isn't that the world you want? Someone else's passion might be to make a living convincing you of something other that what you already know you want to do. At the moment, they are doing a better job. There's going to be lots of those people. Let their words merely increase your commitment to your own dream.

 

[Paradigm]

18 hours ago, Nahm said:

It is in pursuing your passion and dreams that you shows others they can do that also.

 

That's very true.

I realize that there are a whole lot of beliefs I have that are stopping me from just pursuing my passions freely. Like "I'm not being strategic enough and not planning for the future" or "What I'm doing is just ego-motivated. If I was more conscious of truth I'd realize it's just a big ego game" or "I'm scared of wasting my time committing to the wrong thing".

I do know what I want to do. I wake up everyday with the same burning questions. Maybe the problem is that I'm trying to fit that passion into a mould of what I believe it "should" be, instead of just living it.

[abgespaced]

Ask yourself, how can you do more of what you already enjoy doing?

The rest doesn't really matter.