What’s your why?
This is kind of a massive question, isn’t it? Why do you do what you do?
And to be honest, its rarely a question with an answer for most of us.
What gets you up in the morning? Why get up at all?
What makes you go to your job? Why that job?
What do you do with your spare time? Why is that what your chose to use it doing?
Do any of these questions make you wonder what it is you’re actually doing with your day to day life? Did you have dreams for yourself that may have left you behind? What did you want your life to look like? What makes you happy? Is that enough?...
Maybe a different question would help with the answer.
What do you want? As in, what do YOU want. Not the stuff you think you should want, and are told to want, but what you actually want for your life.
And the answer to this question is usually found buried under all sorts of conditioning from parents, education and peers.
“I want that cool car.” Okay, great. Why?
“I want that new job.” Awesome, good for you. Why?
“I want to get married.” Double awesome, I hope they are hot AND nice. But, why?
Do any of those things, as examples, have anything to do with the thing itself? Or is more about the meaning attached to it. Because that’s where the real truth is. Honestly, happiness is great but fleeting. Its part of the human spectrum of emotions that we all move through, but pretending that its something you can hold on to as a permanent emotion for the foreseeable future is… wildly ambitious. If you can do that, please tell me how, because I’d love to learn that.
Where its really at though, the stuff that lets you deal with the harshness and suffering and pain that reality has to test us with, is meaning. Is your why. When life’s tough, and kicking you in the teeth, is happiness and the pursuit of it going to get you through? Maybe… but that’s pretty long odds that it’ll keep you strong in the tough times. Meaning, and what those things you think you’re aiming for, mean to you under all the surface thoughts of survival and that cute doggo needing pats, is a positive feeling state that counter balances that suffering that is just a plain and simple part of life. Meaning creates discipline, discipline gets stuff done.
So, you’re probably thinking, “Cool. Meaning. Great. And?...” And that’s fair. Which brings us back to the question of what do you actually, really, want. Because that IS your meaning. In a round about sort of way at least. They give you hints about your meaning.
You want that shiny new car because that means you’re successful at what you do.
You want that cool new job because that means you have value to give to the company.
You want to get married because you want someone to think you are worth spending the rest of their lives with.
All of these things always, ALWAYS, boil down to how you feel about yourself. Wanting to feel positively about you and what you bring to your own table. Sometimes we want other people to tell us that. Sometimes we want stuff to tell us that. Sometimes we want society to tell us that. But what about you?... Really, you just want to matter. And that’s a good thing to want. Maybe the greatest thing to want. But… do you matter to you? Or are we so busy trying to matter to other people that its almost irrelevant what we think about ourselves.
So, why do you do what you do?
Where do you find your meaning?
What does that give you in the way of purpose?
Do you even care? Because that’s a very fair question to ask yourself too.
At the end of the day, if you’re content with life, its what you enjoy, or at least what you can bear, keep going. Don’t fix something that isn’t broken.
BUT, if that’s not you. If you are doing the same stuff, but you feel lost and directionless in your life. If you resent elements of your life because they just seem so pointless, or demeaning. If you feel like you are constantly dealing with depression or anxiety, or a brutal mix of both, but can not for the life of you put a finger on why. If you just plain don’t feel right. Then, maybe, you need to ask yourself these questions.
What’s your WHY. Your meaning. Your purpose. Why are you here?
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“He who has a why, can bear almost any how.” Frederick Nietzsche
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