Find your purpose
Several takes on how to find your purpose, and not all of them agree. One speaker says purpose is what you're doing now, and Tim Tamashiro's TEDx talk explains ikigai. A scene from the documentary Minimalism follows a banker's turning point, and Adam Mastroianni writes about finding your niche. 8 picks from the Bez Tytułu newsletter, in reading order.
The picks
Your purpose is what you do now
Short · tiktok.com · Issue #65
Your life's purpose is whatever you are doing right now, because life only happens in the present.
The speaker argues that people search for a life purpose because they see life as a span between birth and death. Life is only happening here and now, so the purpose is whatever you are doing in the present, such as walking your dog or working on a project. Looking for a purpose outside the present means missing your life.
Key points- You are life itself, not something that starts at birth and ends at death
- Walking the dog or working on a project is your life's purpose in that moment
- Looking for purpose outside the present means missing your entire life
Greater Good in Action: Science-Based Happiness Practices
Tool · ggia.berkeley.edu · Issue #244
Greater Good in Action, curated by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, offers science-based practices for a meaningful life. Users can browse practices by topic, such as Mind & Body, Parenting, Relationships and Workplaces, or by well-being factors such as gratitude, kindness and mindfulness. A guided pathway and the BIG JOY project invite users to try seven daily micro-acts of joy.
How to Ikigai
Watch · youtube.com · Issue #36
Tim Tamashiro's 12-minute TEDxYYC talk, published in 2018, presents ikigai, a Japanese concept from Okinawa, as a guide to finding happiness and purpose. Tamashiro, a former musician who performed for about twenty years, also wrote the book How to Ikigai: Lessons for Finding Happiness and Living Your Life's Purpose.
Leaving finance for a life of his own
Short · tiktok.com · Issue #115
The speaker left a finance career after a 2007 promotion made him feel trapped, and chose a life of his own instead.
A scene from the documentary Minimalism shows a man recounting his career in finance. He describes choosing finance after reading about degree earning potential, and being promoted to junior partner at the end of 2007. Alone in his office afterward, he says he wept, realizing he felt completely trapped by the life he had built to win.
Key points- Chose finance after a book compared degree earnings potential over time
- Wept in his office after a promotion, realising he could never leave the money
- Took the elevator down 28 stories and decided to build a life of his own
How to Find Your Niche
Read · experimental-history.com · 50 min · Issue #176
Adam Mastroianni argues that everyone has a valuable place in the world, because humans occupy a cognitive niche they can customize in countless ways. He names three reasons people fail to find theirs: local roles go unfilled as attention globalizes, finding a fit is treated as purely personal, and some believe a fit is impossible. The essay uses examples such as a professional bridesmaid and underwater pizza delivery.
Valued goals create meaning and emotion
Short · tiktok.com · Issue #13
Pursuing a valued goal creates positive emotion and meaning, and the higher the goal, the richer the experience.
The speaker says a valuable goal creates meaning and positive emotion, and the better the goal, the richer the experience of pursuing it. Pursuing it means facing frightening challenges, like becoming a better speaker, writer, or thinker, which stretch you. The speaker links this pattern to the myth of rescuing a father from the belly of a whale, as in Pinocchio.
Key points- Choosing a goal means sacrificing other options, which creates a hierarchy of values
- Moving toward the goal brings positive emotion and meaning along the way
- Stretching goals bring frightening challenges, like learning to speak or write better
Do what genuinely interests you
Short · tiktok.com · Issue #188
Do what genuinely interests you rather than what brings rewards or fits what others expect.
The speaker urges people not to act only for external rewards and to follow their own inner guide, doing what interests them even if it makes no sense to others or to themselves. He suggests asking whether your interests, relationships and goals are really yours or were absorbed from culture and other people. Doing this, he says, brings you closer to your essence and a degree of certainty.
Key points- Question whether you are truly interested or just following culture
- You are partly a mystery to yourself, and you solve it over time
- Reaching your essence brings a degree of certainty in life
Run your life like a CEO
Short · instagram.com · Issue #228
The speaker's advice is to accept people as they are while placing them where they belong. Framing yourself as the CEO of your life, the speaker suggests applying the same logic a CEO uses, deciding whom to hire, fire and promote, to the people and commitments around you.