Purpose, Perfection, and Suffering
How my search for meaning and significance taught me what purpose is NOT.
I believe that all of us have one “thing” that we toil with throughout our lives, and it’s this “thing” that comes to define many of the decisions that we make.
For some, it’s the desire for success, either in business, art, or their sport of choice - either to prove others wrong or to prove themselves right. For others, it might be the drive to be liked or accepted in lieu of a tough childhood with few friends. More still desire nothing more than to be respected, either in their career field or in their social circles. In my life, that elusive “thing” has been Purpose - which was undoubtedly exacerbated by the reality that, as a child, I had far less necessity spurring me onward than some of the other “school of hard knocks” success stories out there.
I didn’t grow up eating ramen and having to skip meals, and I never had to have a job until I chose to have one at 16 - which I sought out simply because I wanted to know what it felt like to truly work and earn money. Sure, I had my fair share of other struggles in different areas of my life, but these weren’t existential struggles for survival.
In the absence of sheer economic necessity prodding me forward towards worldly success, I spent a sizable portion of my young adult years chasing enjoyment, entertainment and pleasure in the vain attempt at filling the void left by an absence of true purpose or direction, and all that that gave me in return was greater pain and emptiness. Hundreds of hours of video games and dozens upon dozens of late nights out that left me with little more than a few laughs and a splitting headache the following day - this is the story of my life from age 18 to 21.
Purpose is, in my observation, such a widely discussed topic that it almost makes me cringe to write about “Purpose” as if I truly know anything about it. My desire to understand and concretize my purpose has seen many evolutions over the last few seasons of my life, and what began as a moment of “awakening” halfway across the world has led me down many paths over the months and years that followed.
Through it all, the one thing that I can say with confidence is that what I now know about purpose is almost exclusively derived from learning the hard way what purpose is NOT. After having trodden down several dead-end paths of my own accord, and lived through the harsh reality-checks that followed, I feel that I now have enough of a “lived experience” of what those things are that simply cannot serve as substitutes for a true mission or direction in life. It is my hope that my personal revelations will enable some of you, my readers, to be more aware of the pitfalls along the path as you walk it for yourself.
So, without any further fanfare, let’s dive into what purpose is not.
Purpose is Not Found Solely through Reading Books
One of the early companions on my “journey to a better life” was reading. In reading, I found a way to learn directly from the greatest and wisest people in the world in their respective fields, and I could easily spend hours reading each day if time allowed. Altogether, I’ve read somewhere north of around 50 books in the last three years, and I can honestly say that it’s been great for me overall.
I never set-out to be one of those “I Read One Book a Week for a Year - And THIS is How!” internet personalities that use reading as a means to an end in their eternal quest to commoditize productivity and sell it back to you as if it was something you’re incapable of developing for yourself. I was just a guy trying to find himself, who thus had a lot of time on his hands as he separated himself from social groups that weren’t calling forth the best from him.
Around book number 40 (within the last year), something began to change. I slowly realized that I was no longer enjoying reading as much, nor was I necessarily reading to learn something actionable that I could implement into my life. I was reading to say that I was reading *insert profound-sounding book title*, so that I could add that to my list of “Books I’ve Read”.
I found myself begrudgingly forcing myself to carry-out an activity that I had once found immensely enjoyable, so I knew that something was wrong with my motivations for choosing what I was reading. I had begun gravitating towards ever more obnoxious “self help-y” books, and after some time, it became readily apparent that I was re-reading the same, cookie-cutter, pre-packaged advice over and over again.
I decided then to, moving forward, only read books that piqued my intellectual curiosity, challenged my views and perceptions, and/or would enable me to enrich my experience of life through the deeper understanding of a complex topic. Furthermore, I accepted that it was okay to allow myself to put down books that I no longer found engaging or meaningful.
All in all, my rejuvenated relationship with reading only began to fully bloom after I de-coupled it from my quest for purpose, and moreover, quit using it solely as a means to an end.
By re-defining reading in my mind as something that I did intentionally, and for the satiation of my personal intellectual curiosity (as opposed to a research tool that would “assign” me my life’s purpose, or enable me to mechanically pump out shallow self-help content), I began to not only read more often, but to also truly enjoy reading again, and retain more from what I did read.
Reading the masterpieces of the greatest minds of human history is something that can be inexplicably rewarding if done with genuine curiosity and an open mind, but it’s on us to ensure that we maintain and, if need-be, repair our intentions and motivations for doing so. After all, we cannot look to reading in-and-of itself to “assign” some cosmic purpose to our lives, but we can use the teachings and lessons contained within literature as lampposts that can be used as guides along our own individual paths through life.
This realization was profoundly impactful once I began to implement it into my life, but there were still other strongholds of toxic mindsets and behaviors that continued to hold-back my personal growth…
Purpose is Not Found in Inflicting Needless Suffering on Yourself
The mythological narrative of the “Hero’s Journey” has recently been popularized in subsets of modern culture, particularly within the “Self Improvement” and “Young Male” elements - and with good reason!
There are many positive things to be said for a cultural narrative that encourages people to leave what is familiar and safe, and to voluntarily venture into the “unknowns” of life, not only to become who they’re meant to be by facing trials and tribulations, but to also then return to their society and relay their newly-learned wisdom back to the group.
The “unknowns” to be ventured-into are truly different for every individual. Whereas one person may find a sufficiently monumental challenge in deciding to get in shape and commit to a habit of strenuous physical activity, another person may do those very same activities on a daily basis as a part of their training routine to compete in the Olympics. At the same time, that athlete may find developing emotional vulnerability and intimacy with others to be an equally-monumental challenge, whereas the first person would find it rather pleasant. Thus, there is no one “universal” path that one can take to discover who they could be.
Voluntary, self-inflicted suffering has been deified as the modern “one size fits all” approach to purpose and fulfillment, as I talked about in a previous newsletter. While some form of intellectual, emotional or physical suffering is surely always necessary to progress towards a meaningful goal, suffering itself does not serve as a proxy for purpose. After all, suffering for its own sake is nothing more than voluntary exposure to pain, whereas suffering in the genuine pursuit of a higher goal is formative.
Suffering becomes toxic when we begin to interpret the absence of suffering in our lives as a sign that we’re doing something incorrectly, or that we’ve “lost ourselves”.
If you wake up late on a Saturday, and don’t workout that day, AND you still feel great, you’re not “weak” - you’re human. In fact, there’s a growing body of evidence that suggests that humans, prior to the advent of industrial agriculture and manufacturing, spent as little as 4 hours a day working (and, believe it or not, they didn’t use the other 20 hours of the day to try and sell others their predatory self-help courses or train for Ultramarathons).
I’d argue that, in many ways, you’re voluntarily becoming less “human” if you devote yourself exclusively to physically abusing yourself and depriving yourself of anything that you find enjoyable in the name of “hardening yourself”, “optimizing your productivity”, or “finding your purpose”.
I spent years in the “hard” camp, and during that time, my overall enjoyment of life steadily declined. While my body looked better, and I was “busier” being “productive”, but I was simultaneously deeply unhappy - bordering on miserable at times. I told myself that my current, self-inflicted suffering was formative, and that all of the work that I was putting in today would reach maturation twenty years down the road, when I’d “achieved” everything that I sought (and would hypothetically seek thereafter).
I continued on in this manner until I had an epiphany (and, ironically, a broken foot from overtraining): if I continued on in this manner, I would be a battered and broken man with no companions, no community, and no true joy in twenty years.
So, I decided to carry-out an experiment - an experiment of the most unimaginable kind for “hardo-Matt”; I relaxed my standards, and re-routed a portion of my time and energy to the things that truly matter to me personally. Furthermore, I mandated that a reasonable degree of flexibility be a cornerstone of my lifestyle moving forward.
I still believe that it’s extremely important to consciously subject ourselves to discomfort, and to push ourselves physically and mentally, on a regular basis. After all, by not doing so, we risk falling into a state of spiritual and physical atrophy. What I am now also advocating for is the increased prioritization of flexibility over the pseudo-religious rigidity that such a lifestyle has begun to advocate in recent years.
Since deciding to intentionally inject balance into my life, I have begun to think and see things in my life much more clearly. I am also now more grateful and adventurous by default - as I have learned to allow myself the mental space for genuine reflection and enjoyment (where I used to only allow strict discipline and goal oriented-ness).
It is definitely an arduous process to chip-away at the deeply calcified mental formations that shroud our judgement and perceptions, but it is perhaps one of the most essential elements in “getting out of your own way” as you edge ever-closer to aligning with your true purpose.
Much of our sense of purpose and motivation does certainly come from within ourselves, but as the following two sections will highlight, there is also an equally influential section of our motivations that come from external sources, be it our loved ones, our families, or the societies in which we live.
Purpose is Not Found in Money, Career or Status
Many people that are coming of age in today’s world have calibrated the trajectory of their personal “selves” and careers to keep up with a world of exponentially increasing standards - standards that, nowadays, seem normal and reasonable given the degree to which they are glorified by our generation and its predecessors.
These standards hold that “Perfect grades, STEM degrees and careers (or outright entrepreneurship), and limitless financial assets” are the most desirable things above all else, and even if you don’t necessarily care-for or enjoy them, you still must hop on board to get where you want to in life.
Here’s a secret: Not all of us are meant to be 8-figure entrepreneurs or social media personalities, nor are all of us meant to hold a PhD or a C-Suite title - yet we’re led to believe that these are among the only desirable end-states for our efforts that we put forth today. The “perfect” life is, in this strain of thinking, one in which the individual’s career or profession gives them wealth, social status, and authority.
More often than not, these dreams are peddled about by those who stand to benefit from you deciding to pursue one of these paths - universities with utterly ridiculous tuition fees, online business gurus that sell you “courses” for hundreds of dollars, or social media personalities that reiterate the same, “motivating” nonsense week after week to keep you coming back to their content, all while wielding affiliate links and obnoxiously long ad-reads.
If you examine the lives of those who hold or live one of the aforementioned titles or lifestyles, how many of them are truly happy? Content? Whole? Successful - even by their own definition?
Does a life consumed by the desire to achieve truly lead to fulfillment, or is it a decades-long game of “insecurity whack-a-mole”, where each milestone is immediately overshadowed by the accomplishments or possessions of another?
In my life, I used to goad myself onward with similar thought patterns, such as
”I’ll be happy and content when I (achieve/attain/complete)_______”.
It was only when I began to prioritize the things in my life that transcend societal indicators of success, and instead focus on the things that align with my values, that I began to see through the fog.
Separating my thought patterns and mindset from those dozen or so “mantras” that are parroted by the self-help world enabled me to become more aware of what truly matters to me, and thus cleared the way for me to “come into my own” - in my personal life, in my career, and in my relationships.
If you are like me, and have spent many of your adult years toiling endlessly towards the societal indicators of success, know this:
The heightened sense of ownership that accompanies living life on terms that you have chosen, as opposed to those which are frequently imposed upon us by influencers, professors and fake gurus, will invigorate you with a much more powerful sense of purpose than any shallow “status game” ever could.
One fatal misconception of “what purpose is” still remains, one which many people (myself included) still struggle mightily with - even despite the plethora of evidence stacked against it.
Purpose is Not Found in the Perfection of Yourself
Perfection, or more aptly, the antithesis of failure, is one of the most intellectually tempting ideals that one can aim towards. More on that in a moment…
We are led by media and society to believe that, if we work hard enough, we can attain our self-esteem’s version of perfection - one in which all of our perceived weaknesses have been overcome, and in which we have met or exceeded all of the Earthly parameters that would indicate “success” for ourselves personally.
We may eventually understand that we do not have to surpass Elon Musk’s net worth or become the President of the United States, but what we do believe is that we must rectify all of the weaknesses and inequalities to be found within our own lives and/or grow wealthier and more influential than those whom we most often compare ourselves to.
As I, and anybody else who has embarked on such a quest has found, this is indeed a fool’s errand.
The very essence of the universe is filled with constant change and evolution, and so-too is the case with our goals and self-appraisals. Today’s long-sought vindication is tomorrow’s cringe, just as today’s asset just as easily becomes tomorrow’s liability.
When I have gone back and conducted a “post mortem” analysis on the seasons of my life in which I was the most unhappy, as well as the moments in which I was most driven, one common undertone - or rather, defining motivation - begins to emerge.
In many of those phases of my life, I was deeply ashamed of myself - sometimes because of decisions that I had made, and in others, because of those I hadn’t.
Irregardless of the “why”, I was dreadfully afraid of failing - of continuing on a negative trajectory, or similarly, of “slipping-up” and squandering what little progress I had made up until that point.
So what did I do? I dove single-mindedly into the pursuit of personal perfection. I sought to become the most well-spoken, physically fit, intellectually sharp, and respected person in the room, no matter what room I may have found myself in. My inferiority complex became the driving force behind any and every decision that I made, and this in-turn drove me even further into insecurity and unhappiness.
After many self-inflicted trials and tribulations, the acknowledgement of my fear-based pursuit of perfection eventually led me to shed the false notion that I could someday “perfect” myself.
Once I loosened the behavioral reigns that had worked themselves into veritable choke-hold over my entire existence, I began to understand for the first time how to approach genuine happiness - by cultivating my personal intellectual curiosities, by putting myself out there (even as an unfinished product), and by being real with people.
I believe that, at their essence, all of these new behaviors and activities put more of an emphasis on deeply knowing and expressing oneself, which enables each of us to organically “become who we truly are” without the perfectionist insistence on defining one set of attributes as “ideal”, and then trying to shove anybody with high aspirations into that mold.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but there is no such thing as the perfect life. The closest that we could possibly hope to come to this condition is, in my opinion, a life of deep connectedness - connectedness to one’s loved ones, one’s friends, one’s passions, and one’s personal wellness. If you find that your “calling” is alienating you from one or more of these, then perhaps it’s worth your time to re-evaluate your pursuits and motivations.
Conclusion
My preoccupation with “purpose” has undoubtedly defined many of the pivotal decisions that I’ve made over the last four years of my life. Sometimes, the decisions that I made led me to a better place, but much more often, my decisions to wholeheartedly adopt certain mindsets and ideologies ultimately did more harm than good.
If you are like I was - deeply embedded in a world of bad habits, low aspirations, hedonic enjoyment and comfort - then radical action may be necessary to sever your mental and emotional ties to the things that hold you there. After all, there is certainly great utility to be derived from playing on “hard mode” or “monk mode” to get out of that lifestyle.
Likewise, we must remain vigilant. We cannot allow ourselves to become fully absorbed by the whirlwinds of “common wisdom” and “social tradition” that aim to funnel us into single-mindedly pursuing self-serving ventures that yield only status, financial capital, or social capital. After all, many of these individuals, businesses and institutions that “hold the keys” to the life you’ve always wanted stand to benefit only so long as you continue to pay them and cling to the ideologies they preach.
I believe that, underlying this exploration-of and search for purpose, I have been learning how to truly love myself. Unfortunately, any “progress” that I made towards reaching this understanding was most often attained after the acknowledgement that I had been treating myself poorly or that I had essentially ruined things that I once found enjoyable.
With that being said, perhaps the single most important “skill” to develop in your life overall, especially as a young adult, is the ability to admit your mistakes, recognize where you went astray, and course-correct in response. This requires not only humility, but also the willingness and ability to recognize when things have reached a point of “diminishing marginal returns” - the state when every extra ounce of effort yields less and less positive results of any kind. If we make it a goal to cultivate the self-awareness that is necessary to consistently monitor the intentions behind our actions, and also enough humility to admit when we’ve drifted off-course, then we will have the tools at our disposal that will prevent us from becoming lodged in the quicksands of vanity and unhealthy desire.
Having a purpose is essential to living a fruitful and meaningful life, but by the same token, we only have one life to live! My hope for you is that, after reading and understanding some of the pitfalls that I fell into throughout my journey, you will be able to more holistically approach whatever it is in your life that matters to you with an enhanced awareness of the ideologies and pursuits that can be easily misconstrued as “purpose”.