If you’ve ever been between jobs without an idea of when the next one will come, sick or immobile in bed for an incomprehensible amount of time, or hey, maybe you’re just a lazy bugger with no motivational drive at all – well, this is the blog post for you.
It’s all about sense of purpose.
Sense of Purpose is the motivation that drives you toward a satisfying future. Sense of Purpose helps you prioritise your life.
At the moment I’m homeless, jobless and responsibility-less. Every morning I either wake up at my dad’s house in Mudgee or my mum’s house in Sydney, and I rarely have any obligation whatsoever to even get in the shower that day.
I do, of course, tend to get in the shower that day because I left my dirty-girl persona with my last relationship. But as clean as I am when I get back into bed that night, my thoughts are still stained with a sense of hopelessness, rather than the sense of purpose I not-so-long-ago enjoyed.
I left my job in London November last year; literally walking out the door promising everyone I was leaving them for good reasons. To go on to do great things, like marry a superhero and invent a never-ending packet of Tim Tams – and more obtainably, write a book. Three days later I was on a plane hating everything about the bad-breathed guy sitting next to me but happily focussing on the fact I was now en route to the likes of India, Afghanistan, Nepal, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia. All by myself as a lone wolf independent traveller.
In short, the trip was tremendous. I sat outside my comfort zone on a regular basis; whether that was because I was in a destination deemed violent or unsafe, or because I was meeting and staying with total strangers who required a lot of patience. Even getting from one place to another in one un-chopped-up-and-put-in-a-bag-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean piece, was one of my holiday triumphs.
But now that I’ve stopped travelling, I’ve stopped inhaling education from experiences. And I’m hanging out in Australia on the verge of boredom, anxiety and even depression. This is because we naturally experience a sense of unease whenever our attention isn’t occupied by external things. We need things like – jobs, education, travel, friends, and dare I say, love, to focus our attention on. Because these types of things give us something active to channel our mental energy into. They encourage us to spend less time listening to the bullshit things our shoulder-perching devil has to say – like how fat and lazy we are – and more time chatting to our pretty shoulder-perching angel who tells us how our existence can help the world. Basically, when we feel part of something bigger than being the sole person in charge of the TV remote, our sense of well-being increases.
A lot of people, particularly those with addictive personalities, won’t think about or acknowledge this fact, and a lot of the time that’s why we end up with people abusing drugs and/or alcohol. They almost form their own sense of purpose: the unsatisfying purpose of satisfying their addiction. Good purpose, bro. Nawt!
Now, let’s be clear: I did only say I’m on the verge of letting my lacking sense of purpose affect me. Like, when I try to write I get bored because my mind isn’t being stimulated by external things. When I think about my lack of income and certainty I get pings of anxiety. And honestly, if I continue to neglect my friends and social life the way I have been, I will surely get depressed.
My big almighty plan, for those of you still reading this reasonably conceited post, was that I was going to have enough freedom to just sit under a gum tree and write until my fingers bled. But I’ve become totally undisciplined with lack of routine, totally unmotivated by lack of discipline and totally uninspired by lack of motivation.
Lately I am making no immediate contribution to society, to friends, to blog readers, and I can appreciate how easily people slip into feelings of worthlessness. Poor buggers.
But this changes today, my friends. Today. Because the discomfort of this kind of comfort truly sucks eggs. And not many people get to experience the luxury of what I have right now; freedom. The freedom to not have to answer to “the man” or woman, and the freedom to seek inspiration at any time of day from anywhere I want.
THOU SHALL NOT BE A WASTE OF SPACE.
I leave you with the honesty of this picture.
