75% of millennials are purposeless.
This statistic comes from a 2021 U.S. survey with 600 respondents.Âč
I spent 10 years in that category. Before the age of 25, I was sweating daily to become the best drummer in the world. After the age of 35, Iâd started on something infinitely more important. But inbetween:
- I felt profoundly lost
- I found answers for the deepest questions I had
- I went through a re-education of biblical proportions
I realized through that period that my first career was a compromise. I loved lots of things about it, but it was never aligned what I really felt was most important. And the reason for this compromise was quite sinisterâŠ
The Purposelessness Pandemic
Even if I think really hard, I canât recall a single schoolteacher uttering the word âpurposeâ to me. Nor âpassionâ, âcallingâ, âdestinyâânothing of the sort.
As a kid, I was deeply confused by this. Learning, for me, was something that happened naturally when I was interested in and suited to what I was doing. What was happening at school, though, was something else.
I couldnât have articulated what was wrong about my situation at the time. But later, looking back, I was able to see the systemic issues at play:
- Educators believed learning could take place in the absence of curiosity
- In reality, their goal was not learning but, rather, the passing of exams (which is not the same thing)
In school, curiosity, passion and talent are sacrificed on the altar of measurable outcomes.
Yet we wonder why people struggle to find purpose.
I Was The Odd One Out
Somehow, I resisted the pressure to âfall in lineâ and ended up on a drum kit.
It wasnât fancy. The practice room it lived in was basically a broom cupboard. My teacher was no different to the ones I left behind in the classroomâconcerned only with exams as opposed to real use of the mind.
But I dug my heels in. Music became my rebellion. And I was the only kid in my school of roughly 1,000 students who had the faintest sense of direction in life.
I never took a single music exam, yet ended up performing with a grammy-winning artist (and another 2-time nominee).
I hated the classroom so much that I didnât think twice about whether music was my real interest. It was 100 times better than the academics everyone was pushing on me, so I held onto it for dear life. This scared my family greatly because they knew how few musicians had a stable income. And so, through my formative years, all I heard from anyone was, âmusic is a wonderful hobby, but itâs not something you can do full-time.â
I was the only kid who had an intention for my life, and yet that intention was under constant attack.
My father did his best to support me, but he was fighting his own battleâagainst his own sense of what was good for me. He was an insurance broker, which means that, regarding what we wanted to do with our lives, he and I may as well have been of different species.
I dug my heels in even further.
Purpose Alone Isnât Enough
Cut to 2011.
Iâm crying, knelt on the beach, staring out across the water and praying to I-donât-know-who to give me something meaningful to do with my life.
Iâd just returned from the first weekend break Iâd ever taken. Iâd been unable to afford one prior. I was 25.
For around a decade Iâd been scraping by, saying âyesâ to whatever gigs I could get. This meant I spent most of my time playing music I actively despised. Iâd endured this for the sake of my dream, thinking that if I just kept getting better at my craft then, one day, some life-changing opportunity would land in my lap. But there on that beach was the beginning of my coming to terms with the fact that:
- Iâd been waiting 10 years for that opportunity to show up
- I was feeling like sh!t from all the hard physical work and unsociable hours
- I had no money to use to fix the damage I was causing myself
As such, I was beginning to fall out of love with my craft.
The sense of loss was indescribable. But so was the sense of âsunk costââIâd already put in probably 20,000 hours of practice. So I clung onto that sinking ship for another 10 years.
If only Iâd known then what I know nowâŠ
No Mud, No Lotus
Approaching the age of 30 I was holding so much tensionâmental, emotional and physicalâthat I was in chronic pain.
Something had to change, and this is where I began my journey of healing.
Iâve written about that journey in detail elsewhere. Here, all you need to know is that I dropped $20K I didnât have on a personal development course and spent 5 years studying with a monk.
I fixed not only the issues that had arisen from my music career, but also those from even farther back in my historyâdeep childhood traumas around intimacy, self-worth, and feeling out of place in the world.
In the absence of those psychological burdens, I learned how to be of real service to people. My music teaching practiceâwhich Iâd continued as I wrapped up my career as a performerâevolved many times over. As my internal dialogue became more positive and loving, so too did my dialogue with my students. And, naturally, the results those students enjoyed grew larger and arrived faster.
Eventually, my monk teacher gave me lineage to the historical Buddha and instructed me to start taking on my own dharma students. I was hesitant at first, so I held off and studied with other teachers to confirm my understanding. But eventually I got started.
I realized that the existential questions I addressed through that process had been my real interest all along. I remembered the deeply felt urge to ask âwhyâ that characterized my earliest memories, long predating my musical interests. And I remembered how this had been suppressed by my culture because it didnât have the answers. (Thatâs why I had to look to Eastern philosophies.)
Finally, I discovered a piece of lifeâs great puzzle that mightâve made my music career entirely different. I discovered the power of showing people that I can help them (A.K.A marketing). Thatâs when I came online and started writing these posts to you.
By fixing my deepest problems, I positioned myself to help others fix those same problems.
Now I do what feels most purposeful and aligned every single day. For example, my work with one of my regular students:
And even the way Iâm able to respond to random Reddit posts:
It was Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh who said, âno mud, no lotusâ. This, of course, is a metaphor for how awakening depends upon suffering. If we didnât suffer, weâd have no need of the spiritual practice that transforms us into people who are able to serve one another. There are plenty of examples of people who are born into wealth, continue endless material indulgences and never do anything for others. (Many of those people are depressed, but thatâs a different topic.)
If you want to be of real benefit to others, you must first solve your own problems.
This requires facing your fear, pain and discomfort. But if youâre truly readyâand have the right guidanceâyou neednât wallow in it.
What follows is a life thatâs not only better for you (because you get to do what really matters to you every day), but also for other people (because youâre most powerful when your thoughts, feelings and actions are aligned). There are now millions of people enjoying a new life in the âcreator economyâ doing what I do:
- Living entirely on their own terms
- Writing and speaking on their deepest calling
- Helping people in ways that only they can
- Earning the money they deserve for their unique service
You can do this too.
How to Align With Your Own Purpose
Meditation was pivotal in my journey. But once Iâd calmed down to a sufficient degree, I found great value in journalling for contemplation, too.
While meditation is about letting go of thoughts, journalling is about using thinking as a tool. A tool, in this case, for investigating just what the hell it is you ought to be doing with your life. Here are the most powerful prompts I used for this purpose:
- Whatâs the first thing you remember caring about?
- What activities most make you feel like youâre compromising?
- What do you end up doing when youâre on your own with no obligations and a good stretch of free time?
- If you could make one change in the world right now, what would it be?
- If your needs were taken care of forever, what would your ideal day look like?
- Your past self of 3 years ago shows up at your door, begging for help. What do you tell them?
- If you had to pick one thing to do for the rest of your life, what would it be?
- Imagine youâre attending your own funeral. What do you want your loved ones to say about you?
If you contemplate these questions over multiple journalling sessions, I guarantee youâll gain valuable insight.
And if you want guidance in how to turn those insights into a new career like I did, click here. Iâll get back to you within 24 hours and weâll have a chat to see if I can help you.
With love from my desk,
dgđ
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Âčhttps://www.arizonachristian.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CRC_Millennial_Report01_Digital_01_20211109.pdf
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