Have Purpose
This isn’t a how-to or a generic “10 things you NEED to make your life better” post. It’s a post to remind everyone who reads this that you need to check yourself and what you are doing and make sure it is worthwhile.
What does it mean to do something ‘worthwhile?’ I’m going to take the easy way out and state that it depends on the person pondering the question. For some people it is trying to get laid regularly, for others it is building a corporate empire. Just make sure that whatever you are doing now works against the feeling that you’ve wasted your eighty years on Earth.
I think far too often we are pushed into our lives by some forces of our environment, and we end up realizing that we’ve been living our lives pursuing the dreams of someone else (whether that be an individual or a collective ’someone’). I really hope that if this is the case for anyone that reads this, you discover it early enough that you have a shot at changing things.
My biggest tip? Say hi to someone on the street. Find someone sitting alone at a restaurant or a coffee shop and sit down with them. Find out what the person you are sitting next to really wishes they were doing with their lives. Pay attention.
Programmers, techies, and geeks especially: don’t place all your value in how well you can hack, or how much you know about the latest hardware specs, or any of the other silly things we convince ourselves are actually important. They aren’t, and you are worth so much more than that for so many other reasons.
Business and career types: corporate may want you to have a degree, but never give in for a second to the thought that the letters behind your name reinforce an attribute of yourself. Don’t let others trick you, either. No one that actually knows their shit has to point to a degree as support for their position, idea, or status.
And everyone, for God’s sake, be a good roommate, spouse, parent, citizen, person, or whatever role you find yourself playing. You aren’t going to get a second chance at this. (Really. Special relativity says we can move at a rate that is slower relative to the world around us, but traveling backward in time isn’t likely.) You are involved with other people, make that a positive experience for everyone. Selfishness, dishonesty, and other ‘evil’ things are contagious and toxic. Do not be the source of toxicity in someone else’s life.
Absorb the experiences of others, share your own, be a good person. Make it your life’s purpose.
