The Quest for Purpose: A Path to Follow, Or a Goal To Pursue? 🏴

Read on: misfit-way.com
Read time: 10 minutes

In today's newsletter, We will explore

Giving advice

Finding goals

Sense of identity

Choosing a path vs choosing a goal

A way of life

A business model of one - Funnel (video)

On The Art of Purpose

This is from Hunter S. Thompson’s Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life:

https://fs.blog/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/

ON GIVING ADVICE

"You ask advice: What a very human and very dangerous thing to do!

In listening to what I say, remember that all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it.

What is truth to one may be a disaster to another. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine. If I were to attempt to give you specific advice, it would be too much like the blind leading the blind.

“To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles … ” (Shakespeare)

ON FINDING GOALS

"That IS the question: whether to float with the tide or to swim for a goal.

It is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time in our lives. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you’ve ever made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don’t see how it could have been anything but a choice however indirect— between the two things I’ve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.

But why not float if you have no goal? That is another question.

It is unquestionably better to enjoy floating than to swim in uncertainty.

The answer— and, in a sense,

The tragedy of life— is that we seek to understand the goal and not the man.

When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman.

Why? Because your perspective has changed. It’s not the fireman who has changed, but you. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes.

This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.

So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?

The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all, or not with tangible goals, anyway.

It would take reams of paper to develop this subject to fulfillment We do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, policemen, or doctors.

WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES.

But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors— but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal. A man has to BE something; he has to matter.

Choosing a Path vs Choosing a Goal

Choose path -> Discovering natural abilities -> Unlimited self-development & potential -> Desire gratification -> Fulfilling his needs -> Sense of identity

Choose a goal -> Frustrated potential (might or might not achieve it) -> Limit self-development -> Doesn’t conform to his natural abilities and desires

In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal,
but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy.

The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important Let’s assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course).

And let’s assume that you can’t see any real purpose in any of the eight.

THEN— and here is the essence of all I’ve said— you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH.

It isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’ve lived a relatively narrow life,
a vertical rather than a horizontal existence.

So it isn’t too difficult to understand why you seem to feel the way you do.

But a man who procrastinates in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.

RECAP

Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life.

Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.

I’m not trying to send you out “on the road” in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that — No one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life.

But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means, convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company."

This is from Hunter S. Thompson’s Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life:

https://fs.blog/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/

On The Business of Personal Brand

In a different format,

If you are like me with multiple passions and purposes and you are trying to integrate all of them into your business.

Watch this video on how I'm using my personal brand as a funnel to channel different creator ventures:

Till next week,

Your misfit friend.

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The Quest for Purpose: A Path to Follow, Or a Goal To Pursue? 🏴

In today's newsletter, We will explore