What do you want to do with your life?
Take a moment to consider what first comes to mind when you hear this question.
Googling the question, you get pages filled with career quizzes and tips for figuring out what job would suit you.
When we speak to each other of life goals, it is often implied that we ask of a professional goal. We don’t expect someone to answer which conversations they would love to have or what kind of emotional stability they wish to reach.
When you built a tower of LEGO or drew a nice house in kindergarten, you might have heard how you will one day become a great architect, while the kid that spent the breaks playing football got encouraged to become a great football player.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with encouraging children and celebrating their talents, this teaches us early on to have aspirations, some direction with our life. Before we exit childhood, we are taught to have goals with our actions.
Without anyone really noticing it before it is too late, suddenly these aimless actions that existed for the sole purpose of fun have turned into a goal-directed action, an action to lead to a “bigger action”, the profession.
The Illusion of Linear Progression
This ”actions to results” is how we learn to go through school from the early years. Grade 3 prepares us for grade 4, primary school is a stepping stone to high school, and high school is the gateway to college. College, finally, is the culmination of all these years of preparation, leading to the achievement of our goals. Or does it?
There’s a sense of linear thinking to this way of walking through life. It fools us to think there is always one step following another, in a seemingly straightforward direction. Oftentimes, this is not what life looks like. Life is an act of being–each moment there is presence.
Doing, not Being
“What do you want to be when you grow old?” The question tricks us to believe we are asking of what one wants to be, though really, this question is still asking for what you want to do. A firefighter is not defined by their uniform or their title, but by their act of firefighting. A veterinarian is not defined by their love for animals or passion for their health, they are defined by showing up at the job and performing their duties correctly.
“To do something in life” is so often inherently linked to money and recognition, to fleeting things connected to the ego.
Even noble causes such as helping people out of genuine compassion is a doing act, it is an answer to what outside goals you have.
With social media, even being has been turned in a dystopian way to be turned into profit. A thought, an action, a relationship – it all can be posted by a simple click and turned into content to be capitalized. The pressure of achieving beyond existing at all times is apparent at the flood of stories and reels on social media apps, where every experience must be broadcasted or shared to emphasize it. Sadly, it seems it is simply not enough to be for the sake of it.
Dreaming Beyond Labor: An Existential Cure
The largest protest against this labor-focused society, then, is a life where one lives to be, not to do.
Having the dream to achieve things in life that are relationships-based, creativity-based, or skill-based without ever making it a profession or a source of income then is not only an existential cure to the meaning crisis we seem to face in the postmodern 21st century, but it is also an act of rebellion.
Shifting the Focus Inward
We have become excessively focused on outside results to measure success, we seem to have forgotten that the most important and noble quest you can set out on is the inner one. To learn, develop, process, grow, heal. This is invisible work, but changes your life more than any external achievement could.
The unmeasurableness with these life goals are part of why they get neglected for the sake of extrernal achieving. Consider these answers to the question what you want to do with your life:
”I want to be a good parent.”
”I want to have control over my emotions.”
”I want to understand how my thought impact my mood.”
”I want to be authentic and feel free to be who I am.”
”I want to put my inner world into art and music.”
”I want to have a psychologically rich life.”
”I want to give and get unconditional love.”
How do you truly know when you have achieved these? More than a destination, they are a state, much harder to measure than ”I want to have X title in X company” or ”I want to win X award” or ”I want to have X amount of savings”.
So the second thing to answer the question of a goal in life in a meaningful way is to shift the focus from measurable, external goals to inner, more abstract goals.
Yearning for Simplicity: The Unattainable Dream of a Rural Life
More and more people yearn for the idea of living a simple, rural life on the countryside, close to nature, and consuming what they produce. It is not a surprise of any kind that the internalized eyes of society that leads us to pursue goal-aimed actions are tiring a generation out.
A life with a purpose can still be devoid from meaning. Thus, the simple life speaks to the slow pleasure of being for the sake of being, and doing for the sake of doing, without profit or status in mind.
However, what our ancestors had as their default lifestyle has now become an unattainable dream for many outside upper class for economical and practical reasons. Returning to our simple roots should not be a priviledge, it should be a right.
Having no dream job is often seen as directionless and purposeless. Should we really agree that having only an outer direction without a sense of inherent purpose, unattached from any external, material life sitaution, is truly the human to admire?
The one who looks within, evaluates his inner being, connect with the true nature, and actively cultivates meaning in the simple act of breathing, but does not strive to make a dollar—why are these role models seen less and less?
When these things have become less desirable than material wealth or basic survival, we can be sure the world has fallen into a slumber we must wake up from.
Finding Meaning in A New Purpose
I yearn not to do, but I yearn to be and feel.
Feel connected to people, myself, and nature. I yearn to find meaning in small moments and feel at peace. I yearn to be still, present, and that my values get to be aligned with my actions.
So, what do you want to do with your life?
When you reconsider the meaning of this question and take away the societal pressure and implications, we can truly start to figure out what is true to us beyond what we are expected to do. What we truly want to be, feel, and experience should be at the forefront when looking within to answer this question. This is the way to see your true path and character.
Love, Jules 🌙💚
