Finding meaning was easy before the internet.
The number of choices for who you can be today is much higher than twenty years ago. Now you have decision paralysis.
The internet gave us access to unlimited information. People don’t understand how powerful this is.
Part of the unrest we have in culture today comes from our slow adaptation to computing, the internet, all the new stuff. We are just now understanding we can know anything we want. Our experiences are much more rich with the internet.
The internet comparison engine
We also use the internet to stay connected. We’re never alone and we compare ourselves against family, friends, strangers, and celebrities. We compare ourselves to people above us when we want to suffer, and below ourselves when we want to virtue signal, or stroke our egos.
Comparing to people above you or below you generally depends on your mental health and how much you care about yourself. The best of us don’t consume social media, but live interesting lives.
Normal people have goals. The lost have 3,000 Instagram followers, Facebook meme pages, Reddit accounts, identity-diets and tokens bought from free phone games for fake rewards.
Advancements don’t always advance happiness
Even though the internet makes our lives easier, it doesn’t necessarily make our lives better. Nothing does. You have to choose to have a good life. People who make no choices end up worse than people who make bad choices.
A waterboarding of entertainment from companies with three-comma marketing budgets make us forget what’s important to us. Our goals and our success are the most important.
There’s no purpose without challenge.
The Real reason your life has no meaning
Your life has no meaning because your life is too fucking easy.
There are no challenges. You drift through life, careers, women, as a plastic bag drifts through a depressing, half-dead strip mall. Tolerating everything, challenging nothing.
Your stress doesn’t come from challenge, it comes from convincing yourself to do unimportant, uninteresting jobs, and the neural-strain from trying to make these–these, labors, interesting.
Meaning is most important
If your job doesn’t give you meaning it doesn’t give you anything. Meaning is more important than money, pussy, or God. You need a code to achieve your highest form of meaning.
Your biggest challenge at an unfulfilling job is pretending to care about what you’re doing while blocking out your dreams that died a long time ago.
Your life won’t have meaning if it’s easy or you’re stuck doing boring tasks that don’t matter.
Most people are stuck at jobs they don’t like, paying bills for themselves, making no impact. Sleeping, driving, sitting, shitting, blood-filled robots.
Easy has no meaning
Easy anything has anything but meaning. You don’t get meaning from easy. Meaning lives where cowards aren’t invited.
Whenever you take the path of least resistance, you take the path of least reward. Don’t get a job, turn your dreams into goals and go get some. Be an artist.
Don’t do hard things without big payoffs. Walking across America may seem pointless but it’s not. Think about the accomplishment. Building a man-sized statue of the Rock out of toothpicks may be a waste of time. To someone else, it isn’t.
Even though meaning is a harder life, it’s a better, more fulfilling life. Self-fulfillment through accomplishment.
You get freedom. You get to pick what is important to you. People without meaning get told what to care about. If they don’t listen, they’re fired.
You need to do hard challenges with a physical, spiritual, or mental reward.
Money is a physical reward. Skills are a mental reward. Confidence is a spiritual reward.
You can learn a new skill like how to trade stocks from your phone. Whatever you do, make it hard. Make your next challenge something you can use for the rest of your life. Become greedy for skills & lessons. Learn everything you can and use it.
David Goggins is a suffering master. He might be the undisputed heavyweight champion of pain. He is an inspiration for anyone with meaning. People who found their way, like the Samurai.
Posts on David Goggins
What to do about a life without meaning
Your life is meaningless because you don’t challenge yourself. Do hard things. All the time. Reward yourself for it.
What a great post!
thank you!