Finding Purpose

At the beginning of 2019, I embarked on a journey to find my purpose. Sparked by what I perceived as a major set back, I fell compelled to re-examine the status quo. Where I am in my life and career, why and how long should I be where I am. It caused me to question myself in ways I’ve never before. What am I doing here? What’s the point?

I approached this in a stoic, philosophical, and existential way. To find out what I want to do and where I want to be, I must go back to the basics. Rationally re-examine who I am, then build myself back up from there and find a new direction or stay the course.

This was my plan On finding purpose:

1. Figure out my Core Values
2. Derive my Principles from each Core Value
3. With more clarity of who I am, try to define what my Purpose looks like
4. Determine next steps if any

Each item took much longer than I estimated. Things like this aren’t trivial. You can’t consume a ton of caffeine and bang it out at a coffee shop. Time invested does not translate to output linearly. The majority of the revelations happened when I “slept on it” or when I gave myself physical and mental space to be introspective.

Step 1 — Figure out my Core Values

Integrity, Positivity and Freedom. Here’s some context on how they each became a core value of mine.

Integrity

I believe the universe is a beautiful system, and whatever you do always comes back to you in one way or another — not in a karma way, but because you may deceive others, you can never deceive yourself. Even if you get away with something, the bottom line is you know what you did, and that effects how you perceive yourself, ultimately your self respect.

Positivity

This is something I learned early on from my grandma when I moved to the US without knowing English. She taught me “It doesn’t matter if you don’t speak the language, just Smile, it’s the universal language”. The lesson of positivity stuck with me ever since — understanding that communication isn’t about what you say or do but more about how you make others feel. [more on that here]

Freedom

Freedom to me means freedom to be who I am without fear. Freedom from anxiety, and other internal constraints. I believe the best ways to gain freedom are through Discipline, Commitment and Mindfulness

• Discipline is sometimes mistaken as the opposite of freedom, but they are actually tightly connected. Because the only way to get freedom is through discipline. Discipline gives you more power to control your life. And the more control you have on your life, the more freedom you have to achieve what you want. For example, if you want financial freedom, you need financial discipline. If you want more free time, you have be disciplined in time management and prioritization. [more on discipline here]
• Commitment gives you freedom because when you commit to something, whether it be a person, city or activity, you’re no longer distracted by the unimportant. You are focused on what you know is most efficient at making you healthy and happy. Instead of having choice paralysis then inevitably buyer’s remorse, commitment makes decision-making easier and removes any fear of missing out; knowing that what you already have is good enough, why would you ever stress about chasing more, more and more again? Commitment frees you from the unlimited choices and options in the world that are proven to make you less happy.
• Mindfulness gives you mental strength and freedom from being controlled by your emotions, anxiety and ego. Mindfulness gives you awareness and clarity over your thoughts. We can’t stop our thoughts or things outside our control from happening. But we always have the freedom to determine how they effects us.

Step 2 — Derive Principles from Core Values

Clarity in our Core Values from step 1 directly helps us derive Principles here in step 2

Principles of Integrity

• Be loyal to those who are not present — never say something about someone you wouldn’t say when they are present.
• Never deceive for your own benefits.
• Honor my agreements, internally & externally; take full responsibility otherwise.
• Doing things for the right reasons

“The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance, and even our very existence depends on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to our lives.” — Albert Einstein

Principles of Positivity

Kindness / Positive Mindset

• It’s not really about how you treat others, thats merely the reflection, at the root it’s how you treat yourself. How you love & respect others is a natural result of how you love & respect yourself. Be kind to yourself and you will naturally have a kind personality.
• Be kind whenever possible, it is always possible.
• Don’t let the environment change who you are, stay true to yourself and always make the most out of circumstances with a positive mindset.

Positive Impact to the world

• The best way to make the world a better place is to start from ourselves - relentless self improvement.
• True self improvement requires becoming a better version of our selves, not a lesser version of someone else
• Self improvement requires doing things out of your comfort zone. The fears you avoid only gets stronger, the fear you confront get weaker while you get stronger

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the realization that something is more important than fear.” — Franklin Roosevelt

• The most efficient way of self improvement is by creating habits —how we automate execution to produce effective outcomes. Small habits can have huge outcome over time as shown below

• Build positive communities — use common aspiration/passion/goal to keep everyone accountable and motivated. The Joy of Building Communities.

Interdependence — the only way to build positive relationships

• Interdependence is the idea that people can achieve great things independently. But when we learn to lean on each other’s strength, we not only make each other better, but achieve more than we could combined individually. In other words, 1 + 1 > 3.
• In context of romantic relationship, one of my favorite story from this was Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” where her and Barack both embraced the idea

“One person’s pursuit of their dream should not come at the expense of the other. Find someone that makes you dream big and supports you in whatever you do” — Michelle Obama

• Interdependence to me is the law and foundation for success in any relationship. I like to say the best version of yourself is more than just yourself.
• Vulnerability is the most genuine and powerful tool to build interdependent relationships. More on that — [Power of vulnerability by Brené Brown

Principles of Freedom

Freedom through Commitment

• We must explore the breadth of the world, but the real gold is buried in the depth. Don’t let commitment issues stop you from getting to the gold.

Discipline equals Freedom

“Hard choices, easy life; easy choices, hard life” — Naval Ravikant.

• If we are able to make the harder choices such as gym/diet/routine, our overall life would be easier from being healthier and more productive; if we make the easy choice to be lazy, our overall life would be much harder.
• “What would me in 5 years wish I had done?”

Mental & Emotional Freedom

• Being present and not letting our emotion control us by frequent practice of mindfulness.
• Holding grudges — why let anyone live inside your head, rent free?

“Anger is like a hot coal you hold in your hands, waiting to throw at someone while you burn yourself” — Buddha

Freedom to be who you are

• “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” — Dr. Seuss

Financial freedom

• Careful not to fall into the upgrader’s trap — the more money you make, the better lifestyle we want to upgrade to, bigger house, nicer car — we’d forever be in debt. People who can live below their means can afford tremendous financial freedom.
• Freedom from materialism — “Don’t let the things you own end up owning you” — Fight Club

Internal Freedom

• I loved Victor Frankl’s story from his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”, where he describes his experience in the Nazi concentration camp and how people survived by finding meaning through internal freedom, by declaring —

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” — Victor Frankl

Existentialism & Free Will

• Existentialism is the idea that there are no particular reasons for our existence. Some people find that depressing but I find it liberating — because we are free to set our own expectations, and dictate what we want out of our life, and make it the best one possible.

“Grimly face the fact that life is “a tale told by an idiot”, and make of it what we can, letting science and technology serve us as well in our journey from nothing to nothing” — Alan Watts

Step 3 — Finding Purpose

That’s step 1 and 2, solidifying core values and deriving principles. Those took a lot of work and time, now to step 3, finding purpose.

Core Values and Principles are ideology and rules to follow. Purpose is action. By examining my prioritized activities and things I love, I can use that to form a sense of purpose.

I used an app on my watch to always have the word “Purpose” on screen when I glanced at it. To remind me to think about why I am doing what I’m doing. After some time, the reasons nicely bundled into purposes:

• Spiritual Fulfillment — Meditation, walking in Nature, learning about Philosophy and Psychology
• Aesthetic Pleasures — Oil Painting, Photography, Art Appreciation, Home Design, Minimalism, Fashion
• Positive Impact — Meaningful work, being kind and helping others, self improvement, trying things outside of my comfort zone, building communities(book club/writing club/basketball club)
• Compounding Values — The biggest returns in life come from compound interest. Build wealth that compounds, knowledge that are timeless, good habits, and relationships that grow deep. Things like investing, reading, creating routines, and spending quality time with close friends.
• Spontaneous Adventures — Travel, last minute trips without much planning, following my instincts and curiosity
• Beautiful Romance — Dare to love, be loved and eventually have a family

Here they are, my purposes, after 3 months of discovery and introspection!

• Spiritual Fulfillment
• Positive Impact
• Compounding Values
• Aesthetic Pleasures
• Spontaneous Adventures
• Beautiful Romance

Step 4 — Next steps

I didn’t find any concrete next steps, rather a lucid feeling of self-clarity, love and peace. We learned so much about ourselves that will help us make better decisions for the future. We are more grounded and truthful about who we are and why we do what we do.

We essentially built a compass. One we can always count on when we are lost. That doesn’t solve our problems, we still need to navigate the complicated world with endless choices. However it is much easier to navigate a map with a sharp compass.

Conclusion

We solidified our Core Values, derived Principles on top of them, and defined Purpose in our everyday actions.

I’m very happy I took the time to go on this inner journey to look deep inside myself. It made me feel centered, affirmed things I was already doing and gave them deeper meaning that I can now put into words. It also made me feel even more hopeful for the future, knowing I have a set of tools I can use to make new decisions.

Finding purpose is a very personal journey, everyone’s journey will look very different. I started thinking about this in February 2019, and wrote parts of this in April, but due to the personal nature of this writing, took me a while to muster the courage and vulnerability to finish & post this. I wanted to write this not just to document a necessary and meaningful journey for me, but hoping by sharing it just maybe someone would find this relatable or helpful if they were going through something similar. Would also love to start a discussion on how others have found purpose and what framework and tools they’ve used!

Self discovery is a hard and existential answers are almost impossible to find, but we can sharpen ourselves and find joy as we search.

Finding Purpose is the journey; Principles is our map; Core Values is our compass; As essential as these things are, the most important thing is still just trying to just be in the Present, where you might find yourself & true happiness every now and then.

Thank you for reading. What’s your purpose?

Thank you those who gave me encouragement and feedback for writing this. A lot of the core ideas have been inspired by the great content I’ve consumed that changed my life. Links below:

Articles

• Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life — Hunter S. Thompson
• The Technology — Paul Buchheit

Books

• Man’s Search For Meaning — Victor Frankl (Freedom to choose one’s way)
• A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court — John Wooden
• Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck (the chapter on Freedom through Commitment) — Mark Manson
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — Stephen R.Covey
• Wisdom of Insecurity — Alan Watts
• Thinking Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman
• Power of Habits — Charles Duhigg
• Atomic Habits — James Clear
• Discipline equals Freedom — Jocko Willink
• 11 Rings: The Soul of Success — Phil Jackson
• Becoming — Michelle Obama

Podcasts

• The Knowledge Podcast with Shane Parrish — The Angel Philosopher with Naval Ravikant

Videos

• Kobe Bryant: Mamba Mentality, NBA Championships, and Oscars
• The Power of Vulnerability — Brené Brown
• Bob Ross