Only Purpose Can Save You
Three Point Essay | Having a why
If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.
Seneca
I.
If you have purpose you can endure almost anything in pursuit of your goals. Without purpose you feel useless. Without purpose existence seems meaningless.
Purpose drives you through the inevitable pain and disappointments of life. Purpose gives you a reason for all your actions. You’re not floating. You’re not drifting. You’re the hero in the movie. You’re on a mission.
If you don’t have a mission—if you don’t have purpose—what are you even doing with your life?
II.
My main purpose is to love myself, my family, and my true friends—something that should be self-evident for every human. What else apart from this?
Central to my purpose is to learn as much as I can. Which is why I find meaning in every book, every article, every podcast, every challenging conversation, every workout, and every new experience.
This Substack is essentially me learning in public. Writing Three Point Essays requires research, reading, and deep thought. As does putting out Three Minute Books and Three Point Thursdays.
The content I put out is simply stuff I’m interested in. I create for an audience of 1, myself. But I also want the content to inspire and teach others. It’s obvious that part of the motivation for this newsletter is to cultivate my own gain. But as far as I can tell, the best way to cultivate your own gain is to genuinely seek to inspire and teach others—to generate value. And the best part is, through this process I learn much. Because I don’t know much.
Also central to my purpose is the desire for freedom. Which is why I treat this Substack like a full time job: The more paid subscribers I get, the less I have to worry about doing things I don't want to do for money, the more time I'll have to do my own thing.
It's not easy. But that's the point.
III.
Ryan Holiday is a prolific writer who points out that “from sacrifice comes meaning. From struggle comes purpose.”
Anything worthwhile and meaningful requires pain, sacrifice, and struggle. Dream body? Pain the gym. Dream girl? Sacrifice of a certain lifestyle. Dream career? Struggle of self-doubt. But these strives becomes your purpose. You define who you are by what you’re willing to struggle over.
A great 'mind hack' you can apply to whatever activity you pursue: view struggle and effort as a reward in and of itself. For most of what you do, you do it because there will be a reward after the hard work. Which is fine. But if you convince yourself that the hard work itself is the reward, you’re different. You’re winning.
And when you work hard for a long time, great things can happen. Skills compound.
If you despair at the thought of grinding for years and it not paying off in ways you hope, you can again turn to Nietzsche, who said “I know of no greater life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and impossible.”
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Jeff Sullivan’s Three Pointers
