How to Start to Find Purpose in Your Life

if we live a life of Hedonism we're going to feel empty we're going to feel guilty we're going to feel ashamed of ourselves I'm not doing anything with my life I'm going to feel like other people are like good and like I'm like a waste of space and all this kind of stuff I have no dreams or aspirations and I can't find anything that interests me no experience in posting online stuff but I will try to be as short and concise as possible generally most people I know would say I have a pretty good life

I'm pretty happy with myself and my personality have a good F family and a good group of friends the only problem is that simply is simply that I can't find any job degree or field that I can work with for more than a month without hating everything about it being somewhat easygoing I first thought that the solution would be to try out new things until I find something I can be happy doing I've studied for multiple different degrees and worked a whole lot of jobs in my search for something over the past 5 years but

have never found anything I find even remotely fun or interesting every single day that I have spent working SL studying so far have been nothing but tiresome and excruciatingly painful in the beginning I was motivated to find my place in the world now I'm beginning to doubt that it even exists as a result my mental health has been deteriorating to the point where I spend my time after work and weekends doing almost nothing but laying in bed staring at the ceiling I have no motivation to go out to meet new people or start a relationship

or other things that I actually want to do I believe I might be depressed but I don't want to prescribe any sort of illness to myself without talking to a doctor psychiatrist first good smart without going into detail that is currently not an option nor will it be for some time that's sag and unfortunate my current job was yet another attempt at finding something that might catch my interest however it has turned out to be the worst one so far is I have to work a painful amount of overtime to fulfill my duties I'm currently

in contact with someone who has offered me a job within a new field but I will have to endure my current job for almost a year until I can start working there if it turns out to be as bad as everything else I have tried so far I have absolutely no idea what to do I can feel that I am quickly running out of gas and I think my next job is the last attempt I get before giving up on everything and start living on state welfare welfare while lying in bed 24/7 I have no

requirements when it comes to salary location or status only that I can find something I can enjoy at least every now and then what am I supposed to do keep searching until I inevitably burn out am I perhaps failing to deal with the problem at its root while focusing only on the symptoms any help is appreciated so sometimes we get into this situation where we don't like any work we're looking for our place in the world right there's a place there's a there's a U-shaped hole out there somewhere that only you can fill and we

go looking for it and each thing that we try is not something that we find happy like we're not filled with happiness and joy and so like we're like okay this is not for me and it becomes excruciatingly painful because I I don't enjoy it right it's not fun then people out there may say like oh but a job isn't supposed to be fun right you're supposed to suffer kind of true and kind of like really bad right because I mean if that's true does that mean that I essentially have to sign up for a

life that's excruciatingly painful and there's something really Insidious about that because if we sort of assume that a job is not supposed to be fun and we kind of write off peace or enjoyment or excitement in a job because we say oh it's like just not a possibility then we could be writing something off that's very very significant right so what do you do in this situation where you've tried a bunch of things and it's not just jobs right it's also degrees right like oh I'm going to try to figure out what I want to

do with my life so I'm going to study this that's not fun I'm going to try something else that's not fun I'm going to try something else that's not fun and then what do I do like how do you move forward because the more that you pull yourself out of the hole cuz let's let's understand like how you get into the hole for a second right so as I try something and I don't enjoy it I try something and I don't enjoy it I try something and I don't enjoy it what am I doing to

myself am I getting any kind of positive reinforce for going out there and trying no of course not every time I try it's like an epic fail excruciatingly painful as this person puts it so then what is my brain doing it's telling me why are you wasting your time going out there and trying something like clearly there's nothing positive that's reinforcing this Behavior so then as your brain is starting to tell you don't bother IE laying bed all day you have to use willpower to overcome a lack of reinforcement so you go out there and

once more into the breach and then like that that's not fun and you come back and so then you without any kind of positive reinforcement you end up using willpower over and over and over again then you end up burning out it becomes easier to lay and bad so how do you overcome this situation so this is going to sound kind of weird but we're actually going to take an approach that's like really really like in a sense simple but quite profound and also quite old we're going to dig into what is like the nature

of Happiness enjoyment Pleasure and Pain like how do these things work and it turns out that there's actually one phrase which will sort of explain all of this stuff and also how to navigate forward like how to move forward so we sort of talk about happiness as something that's Elusive and difficult to understand or like hard to find like what is the meaning of happiness it turns out that there was this guy named pangali who lived maybe about 2,000 to 3,000 years ago who figured it out and he said one thing which is yog okay

that you may be like what what on Earth does that mean so I'll expl I'll translate it for you yoga which means Union in this case we're going to kind of talk about peace and contentment so peace happiness and contentment comes from fluctuation cessation of fluctuations of the mind so when our mind stops fluctuating that's when we'll be at peace so the first thing that I'm going to ask youall is like when you're in an excruciatingly painful work situation what is your mind doing chances are it's going to be having lots of thoughts okay so

this is something that we're going to illustrate using a diagram so this is something it's like really simple actually but we we just never we never discuss it like we don't actually teach this but even just out of this one sort of insight from a yogi a meditator basically we're going to learn a lot about how to fix this okay so let's understand this okay so remember we said yoga which means Union or peace is attained by cessation of fluctuations in the mind so let's understand this principle and you're like what does this have to

do with finding like happiness in life let's talk about it okay let's say that my mind is still so when I'm enjoying myself I know it sounds kind of weird but there's going to actually be like Stillness of the mind so let's say that like I'm meditating right so when I'm meditating and if I'm in a good meditative session my mind is still when I'm watching a sunset sitting on the beach and just like vibing my mind is still when I'm like let's say I'm go to a party and I'm dancing and I'm having a

good time like my mind isn't going to be filled with thoughts now let's look at something like boredom so if I'm sitting somewhere and I start to get bored what happens to my mind my mind starts to fluctuate Okay so as I get bored I think about this thing I think about this thing I think about this thing I go over here I start thinking in all these different directions and if I dislike my job or if I dislike what I'm studying what's going to happen my mind is going to start thinking in a bunch

of different ways I'm going to create more fluctuations in the mind and the more fluctuations I create in the mind the more unhappy I become so I have a question for you if you're in this situation you can do a simple experiment which is when you go to a place where you're not enjoying yourself no notice what your mind is doing is there a bunch of activity in your mind cuz chances are there is how long do I have to do this oh man I can't believe I have to do this this sucks I don't

want to be here I want to be somewhere else I don't like this person this isn't Fun am I ever going to find something how do I find what am I going to do if this doesn't work out what if I do how do I find this should I keep looking should I not keep looking all of those are fluctuations of the mind it's all not being at peace so I'll give you all another example to illustrate this let's say my mind is peace at peace and then I smell chicken nuggets I smell some nuggies

suddenly I have a desire and there's a fluctuation of the mind I'm no longer at peace because I smell something and then I start thinking about nuggies I want the Nuggie I want to eat the Nuggie I want the nugie oh my God it's so good and then if I eat the Nuggie what happens in my mind so experiment number two next time you have a desire what does it do to your mind it creates a fluctuation it starts to create thoughts I want a nugget am I going to be able to afford it is

it healthy for me is it unhealthy for me oh my God if I eat it I'm going to it's not good for my health it creates guilt I worry about finances I've got food at home so many fluctuations of the Mind do you'all see that and with each of these fluctuations am I happy am I at peace no now what happens if I eat the Nuggie as I eat the Nuggie I experience enjoyment my mind calms down right oh man that Nuggie is so good I'm just sitting there I'm enjoying it so now we've returned

to the Baseline of the mind and we've become content but only for so long right because then what happens there's another fluctuation I'm unhealthy this thought pops up and then your peace is destroyed you all see this so potentially figured it out any fluctuation of the mind is going to lead to a lack of peace and so what what tends to happen in our life is we have desires we have all these desires and the only way that we know how to bring our mind back to peace is to fulfill our desires that's why we

fulfill our desires so the problem though is that even when we fulfill our desires by eating nuggies this doesn't it's not a sustainable solution because this will result if we live life of Hedonism we're going to feel empty we're going to feel guilty we're going to feel ashamed of ourselves I'm not doing anything with my life I'm going to feel like other people are like good and like I'm like a waste of space and all this kind of stuff so even fulfilling desires doesn't fix it forever the other basic problem with nuggies is like if

I eat nuggies today what's going to happen tomorrow right so even if I have nuggies for a little bit and even if I distract myself through video games or whatever so I don't feel guilty after eating nuggies right because that's what we do cuz in order to make the bad thoughts go away I'm going to distract myself tomorrow will come around and I will want nuggies again I'm personally struggling with this because I had nuggies on Friday and so I've wanted them all weekend it's been hard chat do you guys see this so even fulfilling

our desires is only a temporary solution at best but here's the key principle to understand forget about desires for a second where does the happiness exist where does the peace exist here here here and here this is what Pang figured out so then the question becomes is there a way to hang out here without fulfilling our desires the answer is absolutely and if we understand that then we will be happy so let's talk about work for a second in the case of work my first question to you is to be happy at work what are

the parts of being happy at work is there an external component if I find the right job what percentage of Happiness can I get and is there an internal component what percentage of Happiness can I get at work with an internal through internal work so if I go looking for the perfect job will I ever be able to find a job that will make me 100% happy right so what is the percentage contrib ution of internal versus external like is it 100% and zero so my happiness involves finding the perfect job or is it 5050

right or is it 0 100 what is it so let me put the question to yall another way so one person is suggesting 2080 can you if I take a fixed job that does not change at all is it possible that I can do something internally that will increase my enjoyment of the work or decrease my enjoyment of the work is that possible so that answer I think is absolutely yes so here's the other way that I'd put it here's a person I've tried this job this job this job this job they are all excruciatingly

painful let's use a different analogy I've dated this person this person this person this person this person all people suck are this person's an this person's an this person's an this person's I've dated so many people I keep on dating everyone out there is an where's the problem are they really all do all jobs truly suck I'm not saying that jobs don't suck right we're not saying well we'll get there eventually we're not necessarily espousing that my point is that if you're out there and you think everything around you is the problem you can go

look for the perfect job and who knows you may find it but my point is that if you are looking for an external solution you've got to be super careful because it could be at least partially an internal problem and in this case like I think that's the direction that this person should look so this is what's kind of interesting is that as we look to our own happiness within a situation will realize a couple of different things so there's a difference between the axis of pleasure in pain and the axis of peace and suffering

and this is the big problem with society today is that we confuse these two axes why do we confuse these two axes because of Technology because of dopamine so we know that people who live hedonistic lives if I just spend all my time chasing dopamine and I move in this direction do these people live lives of peace and fulfillment no they end up over here dopamine puts you right here because we try to retreat away from pain now are there cases let's think about this like are there cases where you can feel at peace with

yourself even if you're struggling sure absolutely so for example when I was in medical school I helped women give birth and that's a experience that is excruciatingly painful and yet luckily most women that I worked with I would put child birth up here I'd asked them would you do it again if you couldn't they're like absolutely that's kind of interesting sometimes they do do it again sometimes they deliver a second baby a third baby a fourth baby right so it's actually possible like to have a here be up here and so then the question is

well well what you know what dictates whether something is if we're sort of saying that the axis of peace and pleasure is different from the axis I mean sorry pain and pleasure is different from the axis of peace and suffering like how do we move along this axis and that's where we go back to this cessation of fluctuations of the mind and I've experienced this myself I mean not child birth but like for example when I'm on call being on call for 30 hours and working in a hospital is not fun it's not like binging

like playing video games is fun but the problem is that when I do a bunch of dopam energic stuff I end up up here being on call is in this direction and then there's other stuff right like there's like going on vacation with with my family which is actually up here right so that's like fulfilling and it's fun there are even times where gaming can be up here like it depends on when you're doing it right and there are times where there's like pain there's stuff down here too absolutely so if you're in this situation

like the first thing to to really think about is what AIS are you chasing because when I hear I don't enjoy my job I think they're looking for this so you're moving in this you're find trying to find a job that is like dopam energic and if you're trying to find a job that's dop and energic you can keep looking out there but I hate to break it to you but no job is going to be able to compete with this no job will be able to compete with this and so you're looking to get

peace out of dopaminergic jobs that ain't going to happen now you can find a job that you enjoy you find more pleasurable but it still won't bring you peace peace is about sensation of fluctuations of the mind so then the question becomes okay how do I stop the fluctuations of my mind and so that's where I I really start by like going back to this experiment which is like what is it that you don't enjoy about your job what is it that is excruciatingly painful about your job chances are it's some kind of thought I

find this boring I'm not having fun this is not what I expected it's not living up to my expectations right it's like what's going to be excruciatingly painful I mean I don't know maybe it's your job is physically painful so that's a whole different ball game but chances are what people find excruciatingly boring or painful about their job is like up here and so that's where you can control how you react up here you can absolutely do it so there are tasks that you can enjoy or not enjoying like you can cultivate that sort of

internal enjoyment how do you do that with Detachment so this is what I'd say is that if you're in this kind of situation are you looking for a dopaminergic hit from your job just ask yourself that question if the answer is yes then like ask yourself how reasonable is that and this is also where I sort of recommend tolerance right so don't give in to your mind because your mind is like oh this isn't as fun as gaming like screw this and so then the question is do you want your mind to dictate your actions

does your mind need to be satisfied in order for you to go to work because if you if it is then you're screwed because then your mind if your mind is satisfied then you luck out and if your mind is not satisfied then you're unlucky and the nature of the mind is to be fluctuant I don't know how to say this but if you're relying on your mind then like the mind doesn't stay happy from one thing over and over and over again that's just not how it works right you can't play one video game

for the rest of your life maybe people who play chess are the exception so it does happen I suppose but even within chess there's variety right you're not playing the same person over and over and over again so you've got to be super careful and so this is what's kind of interesting is as you start ignoring the desires of your mind you will cultivate Detachment and you can even practice that by ignoring desires that your mind has if you want nuggies no more y nuggies for how long for a year for a decade so between

the ages of 21 and 31 abouts I basically gave up one of my favorite things and I was like just not going to get it just not going to get it and every time I wanted it I was like yeah we're just not going to do that and my mind would like squirm it be like why not what's the harm why are you doing this when is it going to end and I just be like yeah we're just not going to do it today we're not going to do it today and then eventually the mind

like chilled out and then what I realized is like I'm no longer like in like I'm not no longer controlled by this thing and then I can start tolerating unpleasant experiences the interesting thing is that once you start developing Detachment and you stop stop chasing the fluctuations of the Mind any job becomes more enjoyable so what I found is that like something bizarre happened which is that people are like I hate this class like I hated histology but I could still study for it okay I loved physiology way more but I you know was it

easier to study physiology sure but I could do both and what I noticed is that all my colleagues in medical school were tortured so anxious oh my God like I didn't know how to prepare for the surgery what if the surgeon thinks that I'm an idiot and it's like I'm going to prepare as best as I can the surgeon thinks I'm an idiot he's going to think I'm an idiot and then I'm going to get a bad grade and so be it the most I can do is study for the surgery and it's bizarre it's

liberating and the the other really bizarre thing is once you start developing Detachment or vagya and not following like what your mind wants you to do it actually people may think but then how on Earth am I going to succeed at work does that mean that I'm apathetic on the contrary it actually means that your work performance improves right which is exactly why places like Stanford Business School and Harvard Business School are teaching mindfulness which is one of the ways that you develop Detachment because it actually leads to improvements in performance and you may ask

but Dr K how on Earth does not following my desires at work how does that lead to an improvement in work performance and I don't know how to say this but like imagine what your work would be like if you were completely free from your desires you could like if you could do whatever like then you can just work for the sake of working there 's no inner conflict between oh what if like what if people don't like my ideas so I'm not going to do them no it's like if people don't like it they

don't like it I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway what if there's no longer a conflict between doing what you enjoy and financial compensation cuz remember a lot of what what causes us to struggle at work is internal conflict do I follow my passion or do I like you know work at an airline and make like 150k a year as a programmer what do I do it's this internal conflict whereas once you're free of the internal conflict you your job does what the job is supposed to do it's like no problem for you

it actually is absolutely liberating to no longer have internal conflict at work because of like conflicting desires and so I know it sounds kind of weird this may not be the answer that yall are expecting but if you're having trouble enjoying anything at work and I'm not saying that tolerate bad things just because you're detached in fact once you become detached you can recognize oh this is actually like not a good work situation so I'm going to move the cool thing is that once you're detached there's no guilt around it it's like okay this is

objectively bad and you start acting objectively instead of subjectively because when you're attached you're very subjective it's all up in here oh my God and once you start to detach yourself right you gain distance from your problem you will become more objective and then you can start like making good choices because your mind is no longer Tangled Up So if you're struggling to find the right kind of job because no job is enjoyable to you you've got to start thinking a little bit about where does enjoyment come from does it come externally or internally and

you have to work somewhat on yourself internally to recognize okay what does it mean when the job is excruciatingly painful what is my experience of excruciatingly painful chances are it's up here and so then the question is does this control you or do you control this because as long as this controls you you're never going to find a job that you enjoy but once you start controlling it you will find that the enjoyment of all jobs will increase and I'm not saying that don't be calculating there may be some things that you still enjoy more

than others right cuz getting to Enlightenment that state of 100 Z is very difficult but you can get to 50/50 and as you get to 50/50 it'll be a lot easier to find jobs that you enjoy once it becomes easier to find jobs that you can enjoy then you've got options instead of like burnout and laying in bed all day okay so how do you actually do the control though sometimes it it seems I can and sometimes I can't like how do I increase that chance of being able to every day so this is excellent

question the control is fundamentally achieved through awareness so if your job is excruciatingly painful do you even understand what is excruciatingly painful about it what is the actual substance of excruciatingly painful because I will bet you money that the experience of excruciatingly painful is thoughts it's just thoughts this is a dead-end job the job is what it is it's neither deadend or not dead-end it may not have great professional prospects but where is the pain coming from it's from the thought that this is a dead-end job there are some people who will agree that this

is a dead- end job there are some people who will agree that it will say that this isn't a dead and job it's still work experience on your resume if you work in retail and don't have an opportunity for promotion after 2 years you still have 2 years of retail experience under your belt you can go apply for somewhere else there's an advantage to any job but that's not the way that your mind sees it so it starts by awareness what is the nature of excruciating pain where does that come from and then what you'll

realize it's wild what you realize is it's fictitious it's a mirage right it goes back to what I was saying about like I still remember on my surgery rotation I was blown away like if I'm going to do bad like I can study that's all I can do is study and either I'll have studied the right thing or not studi the right thing there's some things that I can do so I'll even go and ask the resident hey I've got this case tomorrow do you have any recommendations for how I should prepare resident is like

yeah I would read a b and c I go home and I read ab and C if the attending asks me if the surgeon asks me about D and F what was I supposed to do I went and asked the person what I should study should I have ignored that is that the right move and just study other random things that the person told me not to study cuz that sounds like the wrong move and that's when you begin to realize that like all you can do in life is what you can do you can't

get hung up on what other people do now should you ignore feedback from other people no we're not saying that you live a life of selfishness and ignore other people I'm saying most you can do is what you can do once you start to realize that then you will start to control your mind you can also practice through meditation you can practice through even to a certain degree like theia or even deprivation of some kind right so you can practice restraining your desires so pick a food that you enjoy don't eat it for a decade

and then you may think but but but I can't eat it for a decade what is it like you only like one food no there's like plenty of other good stuff to eat you going to survive no but like I'm not going to be happy well like you eating the food right now it's not like you're happy anyway control your mind and then notice Watch what it does no nuggies for a decade Watch what it does how it Rebels but it's like hold on a second you've been eating nuggies for 20 years are you happy

in life well no but I want it I want it so then the question is okay like who's going to decide what you do the part of your brain that's like I want it though don't take it away from me yeah it's just like of course you're going to enjoy it there's no question that you're going to enjoy it but does you does it bring you peace or does it bring you suffering how do you control it with practice with awareness pay attention all of these things why are you unhappy because I didn't get what

I want so is that going to be the criteria for happiness and unhappiness once again let's be critical about it when you get what you want how long does the happiness last I want the perfect wedding I want a dream wedding and I do not care what anyone else wants I'm uninviting my older sister because she has lost weight and is trying to make me look bad I want it's my perfect day how long does the happiness from your perfect day last the really sad thing is that often times people who fight really hard for

their Perfect Day get their perfect day and are unhappy because of it even Soul Munchies is saying that day I would argue that not really because I think when they get their perfect day there's so much resentment built up they get their desires but they're not actually at peace they get what they wanted but deep down they're fuming and if they don't get what they want they're resentful so what's the answer what's the solution the solution is to be not okay and be at peace with not getting what you want I don't need perfect I'm

happy with good enough