Finding Purpose

This blog post is based on my experiences and the book 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think by Brianna Wiest.

For so long I felt so lost. For so long, I felt like I was just wasting my time (my life). For so long, I didn’t know what I was doing in my life.

I was so tired of feeling lost. I used to enjoy just staying home all day, everyday. But I realized that it got me nowhere. I was allowed to feel like staying home, but staying home all the time also means I won’t get to experience life which was why I felt like I wasn’t living.

When I reflected on this, I started to search for solutions. I started to watch videos about finding your purpose in life. I started reading about it and I started to ask myself and others questions about it.

One thing I learned about myself this year is that when I was tired of something and I desperately wanted to change that aspect of my life because I was so tired of it, I do everything I can to change it. When I do that, no matter how long it took, I always end up in a better position than I was before I started to take action.

So, whatever they say in self-help books, it does work, but it depends on how you decide to take it. Some people may say that it doesn’t work for them, and that’s okay. Does it mean that what’s written in the book is not true? Does it mean that the author is lying? No. It just shows how different we are and how some things work for some people, but do not work for others. That’s fine. You just need to find out what works for you and I can’t tell you how long that will take.

Now I want to discuss a quote from the book 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think by Brianna Wiest.

In her chapter: Expectations you must let go of in your 20s, one of those expectations is “Your thoughts will change themselves when your circumstances change”.

An example she gives is,

“when you adopt a new mindset about money, you’ll start behaving differently, and then you’ll be in a different fiscal position, for example. Your mind creates; it is not created.”

Brianna Wiest

She talks about money here, but it can translate to different areas of life. I agree with what she says here and I’ve been a victim of waiting for the right time and waiting for things to change before I start anything. For years, that didn’t really get me anywhere which lead me to think what was I even doing on this Earth? I think a lot of recent graduates have that feeling. For 2 decades, they’ve been going to school and that has been their main focus and their main goal was to graduate. When they achieve that and have to face the real world and come up with other goals, it feels a little intimidating and they don’t know what to do. They know something is missing, but they don’t know how to search for it. Some go back to get their Master’s and Doctorate because of it. Others would end up unhappy because they realize that what they’ve worked so hard for their entire life is not really what they want to do for the rest of their life.

If I were to have known this information back when I was still in school, I would’ve dedicated a little bit more time to trying out new things and spending time on the hobbies I already had, so that I figured out sooner what I liked and didn’t like, that way I knew which aspects of my life I wanted to dedicate more time and energy on. With this knowledge, I think I would’ve had a better idea of what I wanted in life after I graduated.

To be honest, I wasted so many opportunities because I was solely focused on school. Yes, I got to experience life a little bit, especially during my CEGEP years, but I can’t say the same thing during my University years. I would go to school for my classes and go straight to work or home. If I wasn’t studying or doing homework, I was working. This led to me asking myself, “What is the use of me working all the time, earning money when I can’t even spend on myself?”

The funny thing is, I was spending a lot more on other people and felt guilty whenever I bought things for myself. Thinking about this now, I’m impressed by how much these experiences led to the person I am now.

I think I repeat myself a lot here and in my podcast “NightTime Thoughts” that all these experiences led me to be a better version of myself. If I were to give you advice, it would be to let things happen, but make sure you move forward while those good and bad things are happening around you. You can’t just sit there and watch the world move. Things will always move around you, but you have to navigate through them, and WHEN (not if) you fail, get back up and keep going, because when you do that, you’ll learn more about yourself. When that happens, you’ll start to realize what your purpose in this world really is.

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