We’ve all forced to deal, in one or several points in our lives, with feelings of nothingness, emptiness and purposeless.

“Why am I here?”,

“What’s the point of all this?”,

“Why should I wake up in the morning?”

More often than not, it leads to dark, self-destructive thinking, pessimism, and even depression.

With more and more people reporting those feelings of disconnection from their “life purpose”, the question that inevitably arises is:

Why do we feel those emotions in the first place? 

Well, it’s easy to understand and explain why.

In the modern world where all of our basic survival needs are met quite easily, it’s neither unusual nor surprising to feel such a way.

We’re no longer in survival mode.

When we don’t starve anymore, no longer seek for a shelter, no longer seek for a water source – we met all the basic needs.

Then boringness kicks in as a result. Since we do have an ingrained reward-system in us, we create to ourselves the need for a new form of pursuit, different from food, water or a counterpart – this time after an abstract object – called self-fulfillment.

Today, physical resources are all there, usable, available and in abundance. Back then, when we shifted from a scarcity mindset – characterized by a constant pursuit to meet our fundamental needs – to one of abundance – when we have everything we need to survive, that’s when the mental and spiritual side of humans kicked in and started to have a meaning in our life.

Neanderthals probably weren’t bothered by the question: “What is my life purpose?”

They simply lived to survive.

But let’s not go too far, even when you are in the ghetto, poor or starved to death – self-fulfillment isn’t an issue at all.

Just think about it.

The reward mechanism in humans’ brain always makes sure we won’t stand still, and will never allow us doing nothing and feel good about it.

From a biological standpoint, it has evolved to increase our adjustability and make us more adaptive, as well as to chase food, sex, shelter, thus increasing the chance of survival.

Since we don’t really have to chase anything anymore to survive in that modern world we’ve coined the term- “Purpose”.

There is no such thing as “Life Purpose”.

Seeking for “life purpose” is nothing but a byproduct of modern life. 

Have you ever thought about it this way?

When you choose to adopt this outlook, everything falls into place, your vision becomes more clear and life become less frightening and uncertain. You are absolutely more clever about the way you choose to manage your life, and you don’t waste time on a philosophy that leads to nowhere anymore.

 

“Ok, I don’t want to live like a Neanderthal, what should I do?”

Even though it seems like bad news, it isn’t. And there’s definitely something you can do about it without compromise modern life’s benefits.

How To Beat Negative Emotions of Purposeless

While countless philosophers have been researching this field for thousands of years, trying to explore humans’ soul – the answer is very easy:

The only way to kick away those feelings is to be busy.

Simple as that. No need to overanalyze and search for other solutions, magic pills or more philosophical research. Simple lifestyle changes can completely eliminate those feelings from your life.

It’s only when you’re busy and working towards a goal, that you don’t even have the time to be engaged with self-introspection and the resultant philosophical questions that lead to those negative feelings of purposeless.

Asking ourselves these questions absolutely do us no good, yet we always allow them to take control of our mind.

It’s only when you start digging deep and overanalyze your existence that you start to develop those negative emotions of emptiness.

If it always ends the same way – why would you do that?

Anytime you are busy and working towards something that is important to you, you are joyful.

Anytime you’re questioning the meaning of life – you are miserable and get no answers.

So why keep doing so? Well, If you would tell me there is an answer to those questions, and self-exploration would actually lead to insightful answers – I would agree that it might be interesting to explore our depths and give it a chance. But as I showed you, it isn’t the case at all.

It always makes you sad, confused and miserable. Stop trying to find your life purpose and just do something.

The only reason why we strive for “excellence“, the only reason why we strive “to grow”, the only reason why we strive to do something with our lives, aka “Purpose“, is that we already met our physical needs, and our reward system never sleeps.

Reward system never sleeps + Physical needs are met = Need a new purpose (usually in the form of self-fulfillment).

So… The next question you have to ask yourself, my friend – is not “What’s my purpose?” or “How to find my passion?”, but:

How am I going to keep myself busy?

On that topic, friends, in the near future.

—

Until next time,

Gal.