How does having a purpose effect me mentally?
I found this really cool article (well, I thought it was cool) on the psychology behind having a purpose from Psychology Today. Steve Taylor Ph.D. tells about how having a purpose can help avoid disastrous situations such as substance abuse and how it can make life "easier, less complicated and stressful". This article also explains how having a purpose makes us less self-centered, in the sense that when we have a purpose we are not as focused on our own worries or feelings. To learn more click here.
How to Find Purpose:
This is an article from Brainpickings. (A website that likes to pick your brain, hence the name.) It is about Viktor Frankl, a WWII survivor who explains the meaning of life in his book Man's Search for Meaning. One of my favorite quotes from his is:
"Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run—in the long run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it." |
To me, this means that the more we pursue success, and happiness the less that we find it. I think that this can be applied to purpose. I think that maybe if we want to find our purpose we must simply stop pursuing it and let it pursue us. I think we can realize and acknowledge it's there we cannot run after it with arms open. It is like meeting a puppy for the first time. You cannot run directly to it, you must go about your business and allow it to come to you. Even when it has approached you, do not immediately lean down to pet it, that will scare it.
|