Lesson 4: Find your mission and do not deviate from it at any cost — The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida
One of the biggest flaws of our education system is that there is no room for pupils to discover what they’re truly passionate about in life. Now, I’m not saying that no one finds what it is they’re passionate about through a formal education. However, we have a pretty bad system that fragments pupils’ attention and efforts to fields that hold no value to the student.
When one finds what it is they are passionate about, the individual feels eagerness about what they’re doing day to day and doesn’t have ulterior motives about going to work on their passion. The attitude towards their job isn’t so much to make money or to hold a social image. The reason one goes to work at their job or puts time into their relationships is to deliver their strengths to their benefactors because they feel pride in what they contribute to those around them.
In August, I finished the book The Way of a Superior Man by David Deida and took away from it the importance of finding your “mission”, as Deida said. Purpose and mission give an individual’s life meaning, and everyone, with or without knowing it, searches for meaning in every aspect of life. If you subscribe to Pavlov’s hierarchy of needs, you’re aware that self-actualization resides at the top of the pyramid. It’s there because it is the need most sought after. Meaning itself, in your objectives, accomplishments, and relationships is the nourishment to that self actualization.
So what happens when one doesn’t find their purpose in life? I think we all know what it’s like to do work which we do not care for. Most of us have either worked a job or taken a class we had no interest in and did so only because we needed the credit or the money. This emptiness in what we do, I believe, creates a frustration and a dissatisfaction that ends up pouring over to other fields of our life. When we spend time on tasks that make us feel this way, we are depriving ourselves of time to dedicate into other productive endeavors that naturally push us forth.
How does one find their mission? Humans are creatures of emotion, so unfortunately there is no systematic way of finding your purpose. Deida’s advice is simple: expose yourself to anything and everything. While experimenting with different trades pay attention to how you feel about the ways your time is being spent. If it is something that you find pleasure in doing, feel as if mistakes in the task are learning opportunities, and maintain a growth mindset throughout the process, odds are that may be a pretty solid candidate as a passion for you. Your passion will make your heart sing. The key is to not get discouraged when it gets tough. Living a life without expecting diversity is living a life of delusion and unrealistic expectations. If that is the attitude you take to finding a passion, you will have a hard time finding as everything has tough obstacles to overcome.
While it’s important to find your passion, it is equally important to stay dedicated to achieving your goals along the way. In Robert Greene’s book The 48 Laws of Power, he lists two laws that apply directly to this. The first one is Law 23: Concentrate Your Forces. By concentrating your focus on your passion, you enable yourself to reach your full potential. Cutting off or limiting relationships and habits that take time away from your life allows you to reinvest that time into your passion. By “concentrating your forces” in your pursuit of passion you reap the most value in your life and also provide the most to others. Focusing on tasks and relationships you know you aren’t passionate about deprives your life of that value. The second law Greene mentions is Law 29: Plan All the Way to the End. Once you find time to reinvest into your passion, you can set goals to maximize the capacity of your capability. Creating a plan with a set finish line gives you something to work towards and allows you to have concrete goals within life that are fueled by a passion
Looking ahead to 2021, take time to find your passion by trying different things until you find something that makes you feel best in your skin. If you already have found what makes your heart sing, find what is getting in the way of your heart becoming the best singer it can be, and if your heart is singing at the best it can, find objectives for it to conquer. Your passion can lie within your job, relationships, spirituality, and many other things. Whatever it may be, seek it out. If you don’t, you risk living a life only partially fulfilled!
Deida, D. (2017). Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire. Sounds True, Incorporated.
Greene, R., & Elffers, J. (2015). The 48 Laws of Power. London: Profile Books.
Edited by Jarett Joldersma
