Pathways: How to find a sustainable narrative in life to follow.
If we look at life through a utilitarian lens, it’s safe to conclude that our collective purpose is to simply maintain the existence of our species. Which means that at the individual level we simply have to leverage our creative capacities to this end. Therefore, in my opinion, this train of thought is what all 18-22+ year old’s should embrace as the begin to draw out the blueprints for their future and how to best “show up” in that future.
As you can imagine, we humans think in terms of narratives. Meaning that our internal story-telling is always guiding us like a set of conveyor belts towards a destination of some sort (i.e. destiny). Therefore, we should want to stay critical of the stories we tell ourselves so that any calcified beliefs we hold aren’t inadvertently inhibiting our ability to take advantage of certain opportunities—especially if they turn out to be better suited for getting us to where we’re trying to go in life than our original plans.
In getting back to this 18-22+ year old demographic, the narrative that many of them are forced to entertain starts with a question that sounds like “what do you want to do for the rest of your life?” Which I think is too often heard as a call-to-action for finding a job that’s tolerable enough to preoccupy ones time with until they can ride off into the sunset of their retirement years. Now while this question at face value may sound innocuous, I believe that if the vision one gets from it doesn’t include a cause that’s bigger than themselves, then the ramifications of such a narrative can lead to the types of existential crises where if or when the honeymoon phase of a given job wears off, and a realization sets in that the commitment made towards said job was really to a bio-chemical feeling, then it’s easy to feel like a ship lost at sea without a compass when that feeling goes away. It’s like with music…yes it’s fun to play, but that aspect alone is not why I still play it. It’s the vision for how I want to use my musical acumen and social influence from it to help others, that compels me to stay up to 3-4am on most nights without complaint to practice, write music, self-educate on a variety of topics, and to devise strategies that I think have a possibility for affecting change in all of the ways that I imagine being able to do so at the local, state, regional, and potentially national level. So again, to accept this notion that our basic function as humans is to be of service to all the practical and meta ways that we define survival, is where we begin to expand the base of our energetic fuel tank, so as to hedge against physical and mental burnout (which I think is most people’s chief concern for the work they do). And lastly, once a person can identify at least one aspect of this survival issue that they’d like to assume responsibility for affecting, then they can get on with the process of identifying all of the fun and creative ways that they might like to design an enjoyable and interesting work experience that should rarely feel like they’d ever need a vacation from.
Suggested Takeaways…
a) Ladders of success are only as relevant as the walls they lean against. So identify a target (i.e. wall), a projected time frame to hit said target, and reverse engineer with any set of “vehicles” (i.e. jobs, tasks, businesses, investments, etc.) to get you where you’re trying to go.
b) While the narratives we entertain are always given to us by others, books, or the media, we still have autonomy over the level of scrutiny we choose to place those thoughts under.
c) The physical purpose of life is to sustain itself. Therefore, if you can’t figure out how to find your purpose, it means you haven’t identified a problem yet that you feel compelled to solve for the benefit of anyone greater than yourself.