You Don’t Need Purpose to Be Happy
Do you ever ask your Self: What am I doing here in this Life? Why am I here?
When you look at the ever-expanding, infinitely detailed Universe of even just your own Life, it makes you wonder how You fit into the bigger picture.
I’ve spent a lot of time asking and looking for my purpose because without this answer, I felt paralyzed in my confusing existence. Without knowing my purpose, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing or what I should be doing.
I was so desperate to find even an incomplete explanation for having a place in this Life that living another day was a special kind of torture. I couldn’t see how I could begin to enjoy Life if I didn’t have the slightest idea of to where my future was going.
If God would come tell me which way to go, I could at least say I was looking in the right direction.
In today’s obsession with finding purpose for one’s Life, finding purpose has become synonymous with the pursuit of happiness.
But in my experience, I’ve found it both necessary and critical to separate purpose from happiness in order for us to begin to understand what our purpose really is: to Be happy.
1. All It Really Takes to Be Happy
Think about your average days — the most forgettable ones. What did you do to cruise control through the day?
Well, you woke up so you slept. Next thought is probably food, after waking from your slumber. A nap with a full belly sounds nice right about now. And at some point during the day, you feel a rustling in your jimmies — which you’ll take care of with or without someone.
This sums up most of our days. No matter what other miscellaneous things we might do in between, you and I almost always subconsciously prioritize these three activities — food, sleep, sex.
Why? Because they make us feel good. Dopamine rushes to the brain, blah, blah, blah. When we feel good, we’re happy. Simple as that. Even if you do nothing else in the day but fulfill at least two of the three, you’ll chalk it up as a pretty good day.
We’re simple-minded in our behavior — animal, even. Add money into the equation and we’ll naturally want to spend it on ways to get better and more food, sleep, sex.
If you’re not looking for anything more, your Life will continue to be about finding ways to obtain and secure these needs. You won’t even notice you’re on this loop. It’s quite peaceful if you think about it.
It really doesn’t take much for you to be happy. You don’t need a lot of money or have to change the world to feel happy. Don’t get it confused with your ambitions.
The pursuit of happiness is as simple as eating, sleeping, and having sex.
2. Purpose is a Myth
Consider this: Why do you insist on needing a purpose for your Life?
I used to think that if my Life had no purpose or meaning, it’s pointless — dead or alive, what’s the difference.
Logically, this makes sense. But Life isn’t always logical. (It’s actually very rarely logical).
The majority of your thoughts and actions are based on an illogical criteria — your feelings and emotions. There’s no concrete, detailed logic behind who you’re attracted to, what you like, or how you express your Self. Imagine having to explain these things — your Being — to everyone, constantly. You’ll never find peace trying to make logical sense of everything in Life.
Finding purpose is simply asking your Self what you care about. And you have to choose what matters to you or else it gets chosen for you.
But be careful with calling it your ‘purpose.’ You can call what you care about your purpose, but it shouldn’t suddenly make what you care about your duty.
What Is It You Really Want?
This fixation on needing to find your place within the many masks what you’re really searching for: security and validation for your Life. Looking for what you’re ‘supposed’ to be doing in Life exists only because you’ve convinced your Self that there is some grand purpose or master plan to everything — that there’s a right and wrong.
Your Life doesn’t need to make sense. You don’t need an explanation for why you do anything other than the fact that you enjoy something or someone.
Besides, what does it matter what your Life means other than living and experiencing Life according to how you wish?
3. No Such Thing as Destiny
“Your purpose is what you say it is. Your mission is the mission you give your Self. Your life will be what you create it as, and no one will stand in judgement of it, now or ever.” — Neale Donald Walsch
I found throwing away the concept of destiny one of the most liberating acts of service to my Self. There is no such thing as destiny.
Asking your Self if you’re fulfilling your destiny — if you’re “on the right track” — doesn’t serve you anything but anxiety and worry. Throughout the lifetime I’ve spent pleading for my Life’s purpose, I have yet to be given an answer to what my destiny is.
What I thought was a necessary pondering was actually me living in my head. I was justifying my thinking as “finding a purpose” when, really, this imagination was serving as a distraction from doing anything.
A friend of mine explained it best with this analogy:
You can only see the connection of the dots in your Life when you look back at how far you’ve come. You can’t definitively map or somtimes even see the connections of your future.
You could see it as destiny when looking at your Life in hindsight, but hoping for the ‘correct’ destiny is relinquishing control of your Life.
And you’re never going to stay happy doing that.
You Are Free
Life isn’t a predetermined, one-way street. It’s not even a journey. For me, Life is the opportunity to experience. You and I are free to choose the emotional rollercoasters we’d like to feel — to make real.
Even if you take away nothing from this, remember this:
You are the creator of your own destiny. You are the one who connects the dots — with your actions.
The actions you take (or fail to) today directly influence the actions you take in your future. Because you’ll probably continue to do what you’re doing right now. Ask your Self if you’re confident with where you’re headed. If you’re not, you can change it by doing something differently.
And don’t worry about what’s right or wrong. No one really knows because there’s no such thing.
If you are following and doing what makes you truly happy, isn’t that your destiny anyways?
Embrace your freedom to be You.
