The BIG Life Questions - Answered

No, the answer isn't 42.

lifereflection

Why did you open this article?

No, but seriously, why? What were you hoping for?

Were you expecting this to be THE article that changes how you view life and solves all your problems?

If you’re honest with yourself, then thinking about this question will already speak a lot about your current mindset. And you’ll have everything you need to realize what you need to do in order to break free.

Well anyway, I do hope it’s going to change how you view life. But unfortunately, it’s not going to solve all your problems.

The Questions

The most common questions that almost everyone 1 grapples with are:

And these seem like good, innocuous questions. Because they force you to think long-term, about your life as a whole, and where you want to be heading.

I’ve been thinking about these for months now, and I’ve finally come to a point where I feel pretty satisfied with my views on this. Figuring this out has helped a lot (you’ll see how). So, I decided to share it, hoping it benefits others too.

My View

I think they’re bad questions to be asking. For multiple reasons.

  1. Firstly, they sound like awfully simple questions to answer, because each question is < 10 words long — “how hard can the answer be if the question is so short?” — when in reality they are overloaded questions.
  2. At the same time, they feel like cosmic existential questions (e.g. how did the universe come into being?). And because of that, we expect the answer to such questions to be some universal truth, like gravity. We expect “the answer” to have a certain solemnity and weight.
  3. These are highly “personal” questions. That is, the answers to these questions depends on who’s asking it. And so, what might sound like a good answer to one, might sound terrible to another.
  4. Perhaps most importantly, the questions are phrased in a way that makes sound as if there needs to be a single big purpose of life. Why can’t someone have multiple purposes?

In a sense, I think we’re putting too much pressure on the question by making it sound as if it is the most important thing in the world. And by doing so, we’re putting too much pressure on the answer — by expecting it to be life-altering.

And I don’t think anyone has figured out a concrete answer to these questions anyone. In truth, everyone is just figuring things out along the way — no one knows exactly how they want their entire life to turn out to be.

So, the best answers so far are mostly meta-answers: they’re a way for people to come up with their own answers (without having much confidence in them).

Consequences

I think one of they biggest issues (at least, for me personally) is that these questions are so deep and existential that they consume your entire mind.

Once you start thinking about it, that’s probably all you can think about.

It’s like your mind is paralyzed and can’t do anything else until you’ve answered these questions. You lose all motivation to do everything else and fall into a nihilistic mindset (at least until you come up with a satisfactory answer).

And since there is no way of knowing whether the answer you come up with is even right, you probably end up spending too much time thinking about it. Analysis paralysis.

That is, they end up doing more harm than good.

But all is not lost.

Solution

I think asking such questions is good (for the sake of pausing and reflecting), but you shouldn’t ask them with the intent to actually find an answer. Because you probably won’t 2.

Importantly, it’s okay to not have the answers to these questions. You can’t be expected to plan your ENTIRE life and know what you want out of it. And even if you did, you’re probably not sure about it. What if you think you know what you want, and a few years later, you realize you want to change course? Wouldn’t you?

So, figuring out your “life purpose” is just too big of a problem to solve.

And taking inspiration from computer science, how do we deal with a big problems? We ^break it down into smaller sub-problems and solve them instead!

And that’s exactly what I did.

We can rephrase the questions to make them more flexible (i.e., expanding the set of valid answers by loosening the constraints), by making the following observations:

So, instead of thinking of “purpose” as a singular life-long existential thing, we can view it as something that you focus on for a while, before finding your “new purpose”.

It’s a “mini-purpose” — a purpose but for a smaller period of time. Like a year, or 3 years or 5 years. 3

In that sense then, a (mini-)purpose is just… a goal?

That’s right!

And that relieves a lot of the pressure on finding your purpose in life, because now you can just ask yourself “what goal do i want to work towards?”

Which is a lot easier, because instead of letting an overwhelming wave of existential crisis sweeping over you, you can actually figure out the answer to this. Calmly.

So, it doesn’t have all the negative-effects of the “big” questions.

You can have long-term goals, which give you a direction to work towards, and then, you can convert that into actionable steps. And that’s usually enough to get you going.

If you’re not sure what goal to work towards, my personal answer is to follow your energy. Do whatever you’re excited about. If you’re using a checklist or a pros-and-cons table to decide what you like, throw it away. You already know what you like. You just have to listen to yourself. And be honest when you listen.

If you have a burst of inspiration to do something (e.g. play the piano, or start a new project), do it at that time. Don’t wait for later. Inspiration is perishable. It’s just your “inner voice” talking to you. If you ignore it enough times, it’ll stop talking. But when you’re inspired, it’s like an infinite source of energy that you can tap on. Don’t underestimate its power.

You already have everything you need to find your purpose, and be happy. Nothing you don’t have right now can make you feel more satisfied. You’ve gotta earn satisfaction by doing things you’re proud of. You’ve

And don’t think too much 4. It drains a lot of energy, and makes you indecisive. It also kills inspiration. Because you’re not making any progress when you’re just thinking. The way to keep inspiration alive is by actually doing — it’s a cycle: doing replenishes inspiration, which fuels your actions.

If you show up consistently and just do whatever excites / interests you (with some discipline), I think you’ll be fine.

And you can actually enjoy what you’re doing. You can actually enjoy the journey. You can actually enjoy life — because you like what you’re doing.

Like Kobe Bryant said:

Those times when you get up early and you work hard; those times when you stay up late and you work hard; those times when you don’t feel like working, you’re too tired, you don’t want to push yourself, but you do it anyway; that is actually the dream. That’s the dream. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.

Tl;dr

Initially, I used to think that the purpose of life is the pursuit of purpose itself. It sounds fancy, but what it probably translates to is “spend all your life figuring out your life’s purpose, and that is your purpose”, which sounds kind of… bad? It sounds like having a constant existential crisis?

Now, I would much rather have goals and work towards them, and be happy while doing so.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this too! 7

Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. almost everyone reading this* — because a large proportion of the world population doesn’t have the privilege (yes, privilege) to be thinking about this. You’re already on the second-highest level in Maslow’s hierarchy if you can afford to be thinking about this. ↩

  2. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t ask difficult questions that we probably won’t find answers too — in fact, that’s what science is all about. What I’m saying is that asking such questions does more harm than good and doesn’t leave you any better off. ↩

  3. The reason you shouldn’t set goals that last beyond a certain threshold time horizon is that things will probably change too much in that time. You will change. Your desires and goals might change too. Life might get in the way. You never know. I don’t have an exact threshold but I think a few years is long-term enough to help you focus on the bigger picture (which is the main point), while keeping it actionable and relevant. ↩

  4. A good rule of thumb I’ve developed is to not think about X for more than 10% of the time it’ll take to do X (or the time for which X will impact you directly). Most of the times, though, you already know the answer. You just don’t want to make the decision. Have confidence. ↩

  5. I guess another common way to view purpose (that I didn’t talk about here, because it’s quite vague and doesn’t feel as “real”) is as a meta-goal — something that informs how you choose your goals. I like to think that’s more of your “identity”: who you are decides what you want to do. Maybe it’s just a matter of semantics, but even so, I’d prefer making it slightly less abstract and more actionable than something like “I want to change the world”. In any case, I think the key idea of this is to answer the “why” — why are you doing whatever it is you’re doing? — which I do think is important in keeping you motivated to achieve your goals. ↩

  6. I think it’s good to have only one big goal at a time (maybe for a few months or years?) because that helps you focus. Big, here, is defined as something that requires a considerable amount of your time and energy. So, it’s almost by definition, that having too many big goals means you split your time and energy and therefore, don’t end up achieving any of them. Okay, maybe I’ll save my thoughts on this for another time. ↩

  7. This article reflects my current views. Of course, they might change over time. ↩