What’s The Point?
I ask myself this at least once a day.
Sometimes it happens when I’m at work and I feel myself getting frustrated with a client or an internal process, or I’m working on my own business and feeling like I’m slaving away for no result. When these thoughts first started coming up, I got scared. Questioning the meaning of life usually has a negative connotation- in the sense of ‘what is the point of living?’ But as I followed this notion down its scary dark rabbit hole, I confirmed that this sentiment wasn’t the origin of my questions.
What really happens is by questioning the point of something, I’m asking myself why I am doing whatever it is I’m doing.
Okay, bear with me for a second, we’re going in deep.
Think about it. There is no one (truly no one, forget societal norms) that is telling us why we’re here, or what to do with the life we’ve been given. We don’t have titles or positions assigned to us when we’re born that tell us exactly what our purpose is here on earth, it’s entirely on us.
*Disclaimer: I recognize this is an extremely privileged perspective.
So if that’s the case, and our purpose is dictated entirely by our own ambition and intuition, then we also have full control of what bothers us or sets us off or makes us frustrated.
For most of my life, I had a temper, one that was pretty easy to ignite. And when I’d get mad or irritated at someone/something, I couldn’t see my way out. I would let that anger control me and my actions, only able to calm myself down after venting to my mom (sorry, mom) or honestly just after a long enough period of time.
What happens now is when I ask myself what’s the point of this, I’m able to reroute the answer. If it’s in regard to my day job and a client is making me feel bad, I remember that there is no point to the anger because all it’s doing is hurting me. No one gains anything by me being upset, I’m just the one that loses time and energy.
If I’m in hour three of planning Instagram posts for my brand and I’m exhausted and want to cry because I really don’t like social media, I remember that it’s essential to growing my business and that the effort will eventually create a positive result (fingers crossed, honestly).
At the same time, when I feel the extreme exhaustion from working three jobs, I remind myself that no one is telling me when or how I need to get my business up and running, and that it’s okay to slow down and take a break. There is no one behind me, forcing me to function at double speed, it’s all entirely my doing.
My therapist tells me this is called “positive reframing,” which is the concept of taking a thought, usually negative, and finding a way to rearrange it to be in a positive light. Let me tell you, this has not been an easy thing for me to master. My comfort zone has always been to just be sad or angry, always taking the negative road because it was simply just the easier one, as unfortunate as that sounds.
Being able to ask myself the question, in the moment, allows me to take that step back and literally consider the goal (or point) of whatever it is I’m doing. Pausing to contemplate, taking a breath- those are all great tactics- but I need a tangible, concrete roadblock. Asking “what is the point of this” forces my brain to cease its current program and reframe.
Because the reality is, this life is mine. The pressure I put on myself is also mine so I can choose when to take it away or when to reevaluate. We have absolutely no idea why we were put on this planet and we may never know. The bottom line is that we’re here, and what we do with our time is a blank slate for us to fill in.
This story is published in The Business of Being Happy and Healthy, brought to you by the Startup Island community.
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