Finding Purpose

[RobinReborn]

How do you find purpose in life?

[Selene]

How do you find purpose in life?

Look in the dictionary?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

RR,

If you mean a profession, you will not find the answer in the Objectivist literature. The closest I found was with Peikoff once. In one of his podcasts, he essentially said if you don't know what you want to do passionately, keep trying until you find something you do want to do.

Heh.

Thanks for nothing.

In Rand, notice her fictional heroes do not evolve a purpose. They come into existence ready-armed like Athena from the head of Zeus. Roark even asks Keating how he can stand it, that is not knowing his purpose. (How's that for arming a guilt trip in the reader's head if he or she hasn't settled on a purpose, yet? )

In other words, if you look to her to develop a purpose because you are lacking one, you eventually come to the conclusion that you lost out in the cosmic crapshoot. Some people got it and some people don't. You don't and that's just the way it is, loser. Stop whining.

So if ya' don't like the loser persuasion, ya' gotta look elsewhere to find a purpose.

So here's my two cents.

I believe purpose goes deeper than just thinking about your own life. Not that thinking about your own life is bad. It isn't. In fact, you can't get rid of it, nor should you try. But it's not the whole story of existence. If you are to find purpose for yourself, you need to look outside yourself to see what's out there and how that works. Once you come to some conclusions about that, it becomes easier to look at your own life and context.

Here are two main components of purpose that might help you do some thinking (there are more, but these are the ones on my mind right now):

1. The future.

2. Core story.

Notice that purpose does not deal with the past. When you think about living for a purpose, you don't think about what you have already done (except as assessment). You are actually interested in discovering--or maintaining--how you can affect the future. And once that's nailed, you know what to do in the present.

As to core story, this is where you fit in within the universe and the human species.

(btw - The premise of this is that humans think in stories. We do that because we can't not think in stories. That's just the way we are.)

What is the story of the universe? If you believe it is a God story, you will find purpose in aligning yourself within it. If you believe the universe is a background without a cause and has no real story, you will align yourself with that and make the best of it. Not too inspiring, but there it is. If you believe it is some "given" and science needs to discover, explain and manipulate it, you will find purpose there. And so on.

Ditto for the story of the human species. If you believe humans are toys God created for His amusement, defective toys at that, your purpose will be to please God in whatever fashion you can. If you believe humans are an aggressive species hellbent on obtaining power over each other and satiating an innate bloodlust, now there's a purpose for you. Do that and give yourself over to it.

If you believe the human species is in constant evolution, you will probably want to help it along to get where it is going faster (but beware of wanting to be a co-designer because this leads to eugenics and genocide). Some modern scientists believe the story of humans is to use the cognitive brains that evolved in them to achieve immortality, and they find purpose in pursuing that. Other scientists and politicians (and intellectuals) believe the human species is a blight and pestilence on the existence of the earth, that humans are destroying the planet because they are innately evil, so these people find purpose is trying to tell others what they can't do.

Rand's core story was a simple one, accept objective reality as it is, live by reason, value by self-interest and organize with other humans by capitalism. Think it through and you will see powerful storylines for each of them.

Are they all there is to develop a purpose if you don't have one?

You will have to answer that for yourself. I know what I concluded.

I believe these are good fundamental components, but they do not satisfy me as the only fundaments in the core story around me--the one I have observed, nor the inner one I want to live by. Notice I do not deny them. There are there in my version for myself. But I add to them. (This is a long discussion for another time.)

Basically, to find purpose, you have to think through where you are and what you are--the story of the purpose of those. That means looking at the past, present and mostly future of them. Ponder and conclude, however long it takes, and even if you only get glimpses. Then you work in how you, as an individual, fit within that background and can even throw in a little why you exist for good measure.

After that, you can work out what to do with yourself and you will feel that passionately.

Michael

[dldelancey]

I didn't. It found me.

[Derek McGowan]

I actually recently started a group called Soul on Fire where the purpose is to help the members find and follow their passions through exploration, inspiration motivation and accountability.

Soon to be advertised on MeetUp!

[Selene]

I actually recently started a group called Soul on Fire where the purpose is to help the members find and follow their passions through exploration, inspiration motivation and accountability.

Soon to be advertised on MeetUp!

Whew! Good thing you did not call it "Soul on Ice!"

[Brant Gaede]

How do you find purpose in life?

Start with the purpose of finding a purpose off the first purpose of living and then living like someone ought to live given his or her human nature both qua human nature generally then your own particularly. Then honor your passion for it's been there all along. The essence of individualism is that comes from the inside not existentially. The latter is the way to selflessness and collectivism and destruction like for those tens of millions of fools in Germany in the 1930s who helped a madman envelop the world in war and murder Jews.

--Brant

don't let me blow out your circuits

[moralist]

How do you find purpose in life?

By living a life good enough to deserve a purpose...

...and even if you fail to live a purpose worthy life, you'll still fulfill the purpose of being a bad example for others!

Greg

[Selene]

How do you find purpose in life?

By living a life good enough to deserve a purpose...

...and even if you fail to live a purpose worthy life, you'll still fulfill the purpose of being a bad example for others!

Greg

Nice twist on that one Greg!

[moralist]

How do you find purpose in life?

By living a life good enough to deserve a purpose...

...and even if you fail to live a purpose worthy life, you'll still fulfill the purpose of being a bad example for others!

Greg

Nice twist on that one Greg!

It's based on the premise that a good purpose isn't found... you have to earn it.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

How do you find purpose in life?

By living a life good enough to deserve a purpose...

...and even if you fail to live a purpose worthy life, you'll still fulfill the purpose of being a bad example for others!

Greg

Nice twist on that one Greg!

For being a tautology too boot!

--Brant

[moralist]

For being a tautology too boot!

--Brant

A path is made by walking upon it.

[Mikee]

How do you find purpose in life?

Just keep looking. Maybe something like this will help. Not worth doing is easy. Almost anything you do that's really really hard will give you a much different perspective on life. Perhaps our modern life is way too easy.

[Guyau]

How do you find purpose in life?

Start with the purpose of finding a purpose off the first purpose of living and then living like someone ought to live given his or her human nature both qua human nature generally then your own particularly. Then honor your passion for it's been there all along. . . .

Robin, I second that portion of what Brant stated. In Atlas Shrugged, Rand remarked "All life is purposeful struggle, and your only choice is the choice of a goal." She conceived of Purpose as one of the supreme correct ruling values of a person's life, where Purpose is your choice of the happiness to which you will devote your reason. She further conceived productive work as "the purpose of your life . . . and that any value you find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction."

I am a person (age 66) who fit that mold pretty closely, but with a couple of caveats. It has certainly been the case for me, and perhaps it will be this way with you also, that I have almost always a main long-term project that exercises my mind very hard. That was not a commercially viable project in my case, but my after-hours and now (in retirement) full-time noncommercial project. But there are two dependable things that one has to coordinate with such a consuming project (or group of projects): making a living and romantic love. As Rand said in Atlas, "business and making a living, and that in man which makes it possible---that is the best within us." I have found every dollar I ever earned meaningful. After graduating from college with a degree in physics, the only way I found to make a living in the region where I lived was to go to work in a fast-food place, then a bus boy at a restaurant, then in grounds maintenance at a hotel/office complex, then I got on the train to Chicago and found a job as an unskilled laborer in a printing/mailing firm. I worked there for seven years. All the while, I pursued my independent intellectual project(s) on the side. Both making a living and working on a long-term personal project were main purposes in life and very meaningful, especially because Rand had shown how they support and importantly compose my life, which is its own purpose. Often, in some contrast to my own course, it seems people find their central productive purpose in their commercial or child-raising career. The other thing with which one needs to coordinate one's productive projects is romantic love (and friendships). This is an important constituent of happiness for many people, and some time for that, which is time away from production, is important. Romance, like productive work for one's mind and proper care of one's body, is serious business because happiness is serious business.

I cannot help, you probably notice, on finding your particular productive projects, your particular purpose(s) in life. But I do suggest: look to productions, to creations, to making a living, to yourself reaching over a long arc of life you make. First, though, one must want to live. Even if something utterly horrible has happened, such that one can barely remember what happiness was and cannot really imagine ever experiencing it again, one may remember what life is and reach for it.

[BaalChatzaf]

Here is a quick way to find a purpose.

Ask yourself: Is there something that needs doing?

If no one is doing it, then start to do it yourself.

Q.E.D.

From the Midrash:

The day is long, the master is impatient and the task needs work.

While you are not obliged to finish it, neither are you permitted to shirk it.

[Brant Gaede]

Here is a quick way to find a purpose.

Ask yourself: Is there something that needs doing?

If no one is doing it, then start to do it yourself.

Q.E.D.

From the Midrash:

The day is long, the master is impatient and the task needs work.

While you are not obliged to finish it, neither are you permitted to shirk it.

Advice for an Aspie. It doesn't really tell the rest of us where to start. I mean, does master's bathroom need cleaning?

--Brant

[moralist]

Here is a quick way to find a purpose.

Ask yourself: Is there something that needs doing?

If no one is doing it, then start to do it yourself.

Q.E.D.

From the Midrash:

The day is long, the master is impatient and the task needs work.

While you are not obliged to finish it, neither are you permitted to shirk it.

. It doesn't really tell the rest of us where to start. I mean, does master's bathroom need cleaning?

It may...

My Dad was a janitor and a window washer.

My brother and I grew up cleaning office bathrooms.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Here is a quick way to find a purpose.

Ask yourself: Is there something that needs doing?

If no one is doing it, then start to do it yourself.

Q.E.D.

From the Midrash:

The day is long, the master is impatient and the task needs work.

While you are not obliged to finish it, neither are you permitted to shirk it.

. It doesn't really tell the rest of us where to start. I mean, does master's bathroom need cleaning?

It may...

My Dad was a janitor and a window washer.

My brother and I grew up cleaning office bathrooms.

Greg

But you were free.

--Brant

I did paper routes--the previous paperboy cheated me with an accounting trick I didn't discover until I gave up the route in turn and it happened again with the next route a different way (the route manager responsible overall for being such a shitty route manager came to his end when he tried to beat a train across the rr crossing driving a gasoline tanker)

my grandmother, whom I never knew--father's side--did window washing--fell out of a second story window she was washing and it killed her (late 1930s)

[moralist]

But you were free.

Yes. There can be no freedom without earning economic independence.

I did paper routes--the previous paperboy cheated me with an accounting trick I didn't discover until I gave up the route in turn and it happened again with the next route a different way (the route manager responsible overall for being such a shitty route manager came to his end when he tried to beat a train across the rr crossing driving a gasoline tanker)

Hey, wait a minute, Brant... you're not saying that he deserved to get hit by a train because of his rotten values?

Jeez... you're starting to sound like me!

my grandmother, whom I never knew--father's side--did window washing--fell out of a second story window she was washing and it killed her (late 1930s)

We're free to do lots of dumb things... never knowing which one of them will be the last one.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

A 'dumb thing" can happen so fast we've no time to be smart. The trick is in establishing good procedures in the first place. I cannot evaluate this particular incident for I've not enough information, but picture what she did survive--I think it was in 1902. She and her two babies and her sister were riding a streetcar in Defiance, Ohio and somehow it and a train collided. She lost her two boys--I guess I can call them my uncles--and her sister and she was badly injured. Was it dumb for them to be on that streetcar? No matter how intelligent and knowledgeable and careful you are life is risky, so everything you do has a calculated risk of some sort built in. My brother when young didn't calculate risk as well as I did but he ended up getting away with it until he sky-dived in Yugoslavia and suffered a double malfunction. Until he finally got his reserve to pop just above the ground he was looking death in the face as in "Splat"! I think that was his last jump for he sold his equipment. A year or so before I saw how he packed his main chute at Lake Elsinore, CA: he just stuffed it into the bag. As a paratrooper I knew how carefully the riggers packed mine and still there were occasional malfunctions so I knew he was courting trouble. He was not concerned with my concerns so for all I know he continued to do that that way.

--Brant

[Guyau]

Truth of Will and Value / Part 2 – Zarathustra and Beyond / ~Rand 1938–46~ (continued)

. . .

Like Andre Taganov (WL II, §III), Howard Roark is one for whom every waking hour of life has a purpose, and he knows his own (PK VII 88). . . .

[kb123]

How do you find purpose in life?

I recommend reading a book called "Springboard: Launching your Personal Search for Success." by G. Richard Shell. He's a Wharton law school professor and the creator of the most popular course at Wharton: The Success Literature Course.

I think he does a good job of providing a synopsis of all the "self-help" books out there. More, he actually broadens the category into "success-literature," which includes philosophy on living a flourishing life.

He does a pretty good job of helping to guide you through a lot of the literature so that you can gain an understanding of some key concepts for yourself.

[Kyle Jacob Biodrowski]

How to find a purpose in life? Now there's a question that I've struggled with for most of my life. Or, rather, in my case, I was looking for my passion. I was looking for what I wanted to do with my life. I think I've wanted to do just about everything at one point or another in my life. The trick is to keep wanting to do it. That's the hard part. Here's the formula that I went through. I'd find something I really liked, I'd declare it my passion, I'd spend a lot of time doing it, and, finally, I'd get tired of it and discard it. The passion just fades with time.

I was laboring under a misconception about "passion". I thought a passion was something you'd always love and never grow tired of. Once I grew tired of my current passion, I'd reason that, since I'm tired of it, it wasn't really my true passion. And then I'd move on to the next thing.

I really think I've struck gold with my current understanding of passion. My current endeavors involve exploring my passion for programming. Now, there are times when I get tired of programming or bored with it (I've stopped programming for months at a time). And I stop for a while and do something else, but I always come back to it. A passion or a purpose is something you'll get sick of, but you'll eventually feel the desire to return to it.

I've also sought advice on the subject of passion. One of the best pieces of advice I have received is that passions are not only found, they are developed. Throw enough punches at a punching bag or write enough lines of code, and you'll build your love for your passion/purpose/whatever you want to call it.

Give yourself a purpose, pursue it passionately, and see where it goes. You may not love it every minute of the day, but you'll always return to it.

[Alexander Warner]

There can be no universal answer to this question. Each individual realizes his own purpose in his own unique way. But there are some factors which can determine it; for instance, one's natural inclination towards something since childhood, something which one had liked since childhood and continues to like even now. Something which keeps one interested, in which one is good at and enjoys doing even in leisure. One has to take conscious efforts to recognize what is best like by one without the thing being forced to one by external environment, people etc