Finding Your Purpose Is More Selfless Than You Realize

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The average life expectancy in America is just under 80 years old. That’s up about 12 years from 1950, says Macro Trends. Thanks to countless human innovations (and maybe a better understanding of things like cigarettes and trans fats) people are living longer. We’re being gifted more time. But, time is only a gift if you spend it in a way that feels…purposeful. And for many humans, that isn’t the case.

For a lot of people, more time just means more years feeling numb, disconnected, apathetic, lost and a slew of other not-so-great emotions. There is a really vital, electric, magnetic energy to tap into in life. But, you need to figure out how to plug into it, and not everyone does. The key to experiencing that is finding your purpose. There’s a lot more to it than you might realize.

 

Why Billionaires Get Sad

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Without sounding too much like a Berkeley professor who wears hemp necklaces and canvas sandals, you can blame a lot of human numbness to our capitalistic (and materialistic) society. Money, status and power, as it turns out, do not plug you into the life-giving, animating energy source that sits right beneath the surface, and is there for any of us to tap into, at any moment.

That’s why, as Business Insider reports, so many billionaires get depressed. They built their lives around a “someday” philosophy. “Someday, when I achieve this or that, I get to be happy.” Or “Someday, when I have this much stuff, I’ll be happy.” Then that day comes, it lasted all of a few hours or weeks, and…they had nothing left. Even astronauts who spent their lives preparing to walk on the moon were only actually on the moon for like 21 hours.

Many people have this experience: reaching that “pinnacle” of their goals, only to feel a deep letdown afterwards. Want to know what their biggest problem was? They didn’t find their purpose – or at least, not a good one. Not every purpose is good. And purpose is about so much more than some finite and specific moment in the future. Purpose is the energy that can ignite your every waking moment. If you have a good one.