Why you should stop looking for a purpose in life
Because you already know it
What is the meaning of my life?
How do I find my purpose in life?
The short answer is, ‘Stop looking for it.’
Yes, that is correct. We need to stop looking for a greater meaning in life.
We get so obsessed with this process of finding a higher purpose or deeper meaning we often forget to live our lives. We spend our days and nights thinking about it, fantasizing about it and end up missing out on the small joys of life.
And why exactly is it so important to look for some purpose in life? Can the purpose of our life not be just living as is?
Always seeking more
In Man’s Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl suggests that seeking meaning in life is our primary motivation.
This meaning is specific and unique in that it must and can be fulfilled by us alone.
But can’t just living our lives be our primary motivation? And isn’t your life unique already? You are the only person who can live your life. Only you can think your thoughts, and do what you do, the way you do it. The way you love or care or believe is unique to you alone.
If you are living an authentic life, then living in itself should be your purpose. Inauthenticity sometimes drives the desire to seek something larger than yourself. Finding that one thing that makes you feel like life has some value, worth, and significance.
You seek such a purpose because you may have come to believe that your life as such has no meaning. A better job or a bigger house will make you more satisfied with yourself. Having these luxuries in life will make it worth living.
Do really you believe that more materialistic pleasures will add happiness to your life?
Or that if you knew where your life was going will make you content with it?
It is human nature to keep seeking more in life. Humans are a greedy lot, you know. Even if you know the meaning of life, it is never going to be enough. You will quickly become dissatisfied with it and seek more. Seek more success, increased pleasure, and deeper meaning.
Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy
This struggle to find a worthwhile goal in life, says Dr Frankl, motivates a person enough to keep her going. His theory of logotherapy suggests three ways to find the meaning of life.
- Doing a deed or creating a work
- Experiencing something or encountering someone
- The attitude we take towards unavoidable circumstances
But aren’t these three criteria life as it is?
Think about it. We go through the routines of our lives day-in-day-out. Go to work, listen to our boss scream, bring home groceries, cook a meal, spend time with our family. These daily churnings of our life satisfy logotherapy’s first criterion — doing a deed.
The other two, Dr Frankl explains in detail.
We must experience love, not in a sexual manner but as a way to see the essential traits and features of our beloved.
Love should not be considered a side-effect of sex.
In the modern world, sex and love are equally important to live a fulfilled life. Sex is a primary biological need. And can love ever be considered a side-effect of sex? If it were so, does that mean asexual persons do not know how to love?
Lastly, Dr Frankl talks about finding the meaning in life when confronted with a hopeless situation. There is no contention to this fact. We may be able to find meaning in distressing moments. We may be inspired to find a higher purpose upon encountering the suffering of others.
But don’t go looking for a silver lining in every cloud. Sometimes the clouds are just dark, with no silver lines. We need not associate meaning to every difficult situation. Falling into the trap of toxic positivity is not going to help anyone find meaning.
Consider every suffering or sorrow as something that happened to be passing through your life. It is not here to stay, and you know that. Do not try to make sense of it. It is not part of some big plan that is unfolding. It simply is an unfortunate event.
Existential Frustration
Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to disregard Dr Frankl’s work. He was, is and will remain one of the great psychiatrists and authors.
But I believe this never-ending quest to find meaning in life will only result in “existential frustration”.
We often begin traversing this path, hoping that it leads us to our higher purpose. And pretty soon, we find ourselves simply going in circles. Only to realize that there never was any meaning to look. And boy, does this bum us out.
We then tread down a dangerous path, where our existence starts feeling irrelevant to this world. And this distress frustrates us even more unless we start seeing that life’s meaning can also be just existing.
Create your meaning
If you still feel the urge to find meaning in life, start creating it. We did not come to this earth with a predetermined purpose. We can work it, make it, break it the way we believe, will fit into the mould of our lives.
We create meaning in life. An abstract idea of meaning can not make us.
I am going to leave you with a quote from Albert Camus.
“The literal meaning of life is whatever you are doing that prevents you from killing yourself.”
To read more on Existentialism check out Owen Lloyd’s story
