You Have No Idea What to do With Your Life and That’s Okay Perren Follow Mar 10, 2016 · 3 min read

People believe they have to have their lives figured out right now. I’m guilty of this.

We ask ourselves questions like…..

What is it I am supposed to do with my life?….

Which can also be worded as….

What is my purpose?….

But what it really means…

What is an important use of my time that I could do everyday?

I’m not ashamed to admit that I have been asking myself these variations of questions for over two years.

After jumping from job to job and starting some failed side businesses, I feel burnt out.

I don’t even recognize who I am at times because of always seeking, searching, pondering, and yearning for that all elusive purpose.

To find this purpose is like finding the holy grail in my mind. I believe once it’s found, my life will be dedicated around it.

It’s not that I believe my life will get easier, but I know I could tolerate pain much more if it’s geared towards my purpose. I will also better able to gauge my decisions around if I’m aligning my life with that purpose or not.

So, in my mind, it’s like being handed the compass from Pirates of the Caribbean.

My favorite action hero.

The journey isn’t necessarily smoother, but at least you know what you want and you begin to head in that direction.

Now, I’m taking a break from the search. Throwing in the towel.

I’ve begun doing stuff I enjoy again like playing video games and watching movies. Gasp.

I deprived myself of these things. In my mind, they were only distractions from finding my purpose.

The neat thing was, not only did I begin to discover my purpose doing this, I became happier. Happier in that I didn’t feel like I was punishing myself for not having a purpose, or a goal, or dream yet.

I accepted the fact that I don’t have things figured out, and I may never have that. And you know what, that’s okay.

Granted, accepting this took a couple of times to really push myself to enjoy movies, video games, certain music, and certain books again but it has greatly worked in my favor.

Ascetic practices to discover my purpose be darned. The world is back in color again and fresh air encompasses me.

Because of the mental torture I stripped from myself, I’ve been able to step back and take a much wider perspective on what I enjoy versus what I don’t.

I might not have a purpose yet, but now I don’t feel depressed/anxious about it. No longer am I metaphorically banging my head against the wall. No longer am I comparing myself to others (okay maybe a little) nor questioning my sanity (debatable).

If I begin doing something I like, I question why that is, but I don’t attach to the concept of “this has to be my purpose just because I enjoy doing it.”

With a clearer mind and happier heart, I forge onward to find my purpose in life…. or not.

Either way, I’m enjoying the search. In the meantime, I’m going to continue to write.

I enjoy writing about radical self-acceptance and other related topics. Maybe that could be my purpose? We’ll see.

But what I leave with you is this: if you haven’t found your purpose yet, accept that and go do something else. You’ll be able to come back to this question again. I promise.

The longer you stay away from it, the greater the perspective you’ll gain each time you come back to it.

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