What Should I Do With My Life?

The decision of what to do with your life is a decision which all of us must make. We will after all, end up “doing” something regardless of whether it is a conscious decision we make or an unconscious decision we make to do that thing. If you don’t decide how you want to live as well as what you want to be and do, then someone or something else will decide for you. If this happens, instead of living according to your own inner values and enjoyment, you will yield control of your life to a combination of subconscious influences such as genetic predispositions, upbringing, social conditioning, environment, or the opinions of other people in your life. This surrender of control of your life is the direct result of not listening to intuition. Inner values are expressed through intuition. Intuition is the voice of the true self. It is for this very reason that it is so important to get in touch with who you really are so that your true self can be allowed to operate in your life. This process can be a scary one because your inner values may run counter to everything you’ve been led to believe. Your inner values my even run counter to the inner values of everyone else around you. But if you are brave enough to live according to your own inner values, the result will be a level of freedom, joy and fulfillment which you have never before experienced.
Your true, essential self (often called your soul) does not need to go searching for who you are. It knows exactly who you are and what you love and what your deepest desires are. We are not born upon this planet searching for our souls as if we have lost them. In fact, young children for the most part live entirely according to their own souls. It is only when we become self conscious enough to adopt external values, opinions and advice that our own souls become suppressed and obscured to us. It is only due to this suppression that we forget who and what we are. Most of our lives we strive to do what is “right”. But the question to ask yourself is… right according to whom? People adopt external values, opinions and advice for one primary reason; they hold the illusion that happiness and worth and security and love and care and direction comes from others. We must accept that lovability, security, worth, care, direction and happiness do not come from others. They come from ourselves.
The risk of placing value on what you want, what you love and who you really are often feels like the risk of not being loved for what is real about yourself. It can also feel like the risk of being seen as a failure by others (which is a threat to most people’s sense of self worth) so it is easy to see how placing value on what you truly want and who you truly are can be a very frightening proposition. But until you reveal your true desires and true self, it is not possible to be truly loved. True love is love which exists for the truth of someone, not a facade put on for the perceived benefit of being accepted or the perceived benefit of affirming another person’s inner values by adopting them. There is nothing in this world which compares to being loved for what is real about yourself. Until you reveal your true desires and true self, it is also not possible to be truly happy.
When you are trying to decide what to do with your life, it is important to first find out where you are. It can be a frightening idea to admit to ourselves that we are not where we want to be. But the way to get to where you want to be is to first realize and admit that you are not currently in a place where you are living according to your true self. Ask yourself in this very moment, are you happy? This is not a question which refers to mere contentment. Asking yourself if you are happy, really means are you passionate about your life? Do you get more excited about going on vacation than you do about doing your day to day work? Are you in love with your existence? Are you delighted to be here on earth at this particular point in time? Do you like where you live? Do you enjoy your relationships? Once you have your answers, without calling them “good” or “bad” you can begin to move forward to the place where you want to be. You can begin on this path towards living the life you want to be living by understanding that underneath every erroneous decision and mistake a person makes in their life is illusion and fear. But if you look even deeper, you will see that beneath every erroneous decision and mistake a person makes, is a soul striving for relief as well as an invaluable lesson to be learned. Finding your own values and priorities may take some risk. It takes being brave enough to trust your own talents and internal knowing for security instead of trusting anything outside of yourself for security. It takes being brave enough to remember who you really are again.
A major reason people often do not live the lives they wish to live is because of negative beliefs. Beliefs are just thoughts repeated so often, they become reality. They are thoughts which are on a repetitive loop which have made themselves so much a part of our physical lives, we regard them as truth—or even worse, become completely unaware of what they are. The term that has been used for this over the years is a negative, self-limiting core belief. These beliefs— are only as true as you believe them to be. We develop beliefs because of conditioning. They are beliefs which limit you such as “no one can make a living doing this or that” or “fun is irresponsible” or “I am worthless if I do not go to college”.
Many of us turned away from our natural desires by being taught to adopt the beliefs and values of others (especially authority figures) at such a young age that we loose touch with our desires completely. So, one of the best ways to get back in touch with the real you, is to think back to your natural inclinations as a child. Make a long list of things you knew you loved when you were a child. Make a list of your natural talents as a child and try to remember what you wanted to be when you grew up. Now, after you make that list, make sure to ask yourself why. Why did you love those things? Why did you possess those natural talents? Why did you want to grow up to be those things? Then ask yourself do I still enjoy and practice these things? If not…why? Can I remember what caused me to stop?. Was it because of someone else? Do I remember how it felt to stop doing those things?
From here, fast forward. Ask yourself what your favorite part of your entire life was so far and why that particular point was your favorite part of your life. Get as detailed as you can in order to discover the true reason you enjoyed it so much. And after that, ask yourself what you enjoy about the life you are living in now? What am I passionate about in my life currently? Have I devoted those things to the back burner, or are they the primary focus of my life? This process will help you to understand what it is that you truly enjoy separate of your conditioned and logical brain which (being mechanical in nature) has often been taught to minimize feeling states such as joy and passion.
If you’re a person who says that passion just isn’t your personality, or isn’t necessary to life then you should know that you have sacrificed too much. If you’re living on purpose instead of by default, passion will be the normal state of your life. Passion will not suddenly transform you into an unbalanced, emotional wreck. Passion is the most powerful of positive emotional states next to love. It will push you to live your full potential. Intellect can only get you so far. There’s a difference between deciding to achieve a goal and actually achieving it. Your intellect can manage the former, but it’s incapable of achieving the latter. You will feel passion directly as the emotional result of heading in the right direction. If you find that passion is gone from parts of your life, see the message behind that lack which is that it is time to make a new decision. It is time to change directions.
Many decisions made with intellect in the moment, seem like good rational ideas, but when you imagine how these decisions will play out over the next ten, twenty, or even fifty years, their weaknesses become immediately apparent. Take your job, for example. Where will it lead you in the long run? Think about where it will take you between now and the end of your life. Imagine looking back upon your career and life. How do you feel about it? Are you living the life you want to live or would your life seem like a life not really lived? If you’ve made the correct decisions for yourself, then you should feel no regret, you will feel like you have lived a life full of passion and purpose.
It may be helpful when deciding what to do with your life, to try and discover your life’s purpose. To do this, you will have to practice emotional intelligence. One way to find your life’s purpose is to take out a sheep of paper and write down a list of all the different things you can think of which might be your life’s purpose. Any answer that pops into your head should be written down. Repeat this as many times as you possibly can until you reach the answer that evokes a strong emotional reaction from you. In other words, the one that makes you want to cry. This usually takes some time to clear all of the thoughts out of your mind until the answer that goes down on the sheet is the one voiced by your true self. You may discover a few answers along the way that seem to give you a mini-surge of emotion, but they don’t quite hit you in that epic way that the real answer does. They’re just a bit off. Make sure to highlight those answers as you go along, so you can come back to them to generate new permutations. Each reflects a piece of your purpose, but individually they aren’t complete. When you start getting these kinds of answers, it means you’re getting warm, so keep going. When you write the one which truly reflects your real self, you will know it. Once you find the answer, ask yourself if you are living your life according to that purpose. If the answer is no, ask yourself, what steps could I take right now in order to live according to that purpose? Is there a way that I could foresee creating my life by incorporating the things that I enjoy and feel passionate about into the very life’s purpose which I’ve just discovered? If you can, take the risk of doing so. If not, put forth the intention for the opportunity to do so to come to you. It may come completely out of the blue. You do not need to know the HOW of things. The how will be presented to you. You simply need to know what you want and why you want it and then be brave enough to jump at opportunities as they come along.
You do not need to fear making the wrong choice, if you take the risk to try something which you feel is in line with your true self it will bring you joy. And even in the unlikely event that it doesn’t, you can always change your mind and try something new. This world is a mutable world. There is no such thing as permanence. We are meant to come into life and find our calling here through exploration according to our own joy. We are not meant to come into life in order to begrudgingly fulfill a duty to destiny whether we like it or not. Be brave enough to take the risk of following your internal guidance regardless of what any one outside of you says. Many people avoid risks habitually. It is because they have been told that to play it safe is the intelligent thing to do. But the question you must ask yourself is …Why? We will all die one day. Our lives are not permanent. And all too often people do not take risks only to arrive at death… safely. But anyone who lives this kind of life regrets it in the end.
Everything which is ever done is done for one reason and one reason only, because the doer thinks they will feel better in the doing of it. If a person lives for fun, it is because they think they will feel better in the having of fun. If a person lives to help others it is because they think they will feel better by helping people. If a person lives for purpose, it is because they think they will feel better if they have purpose. So you see, everything ever done is therefore done in the quest for happiness. So, it is best to cut to the chase and make happiness the true goal of your life. If you begin to do this, you will find yourself on the path of your ultimate desires, even if it is a path you never in a million years thought you would find yourself on. Treat each day as if it could quite possibly be your last. If you do this, you will search for enjoyment above all else and therefore you will be living all your days according to your true nature. Your life is yours to live. Your life has no more limitations than the limitations you, yourself impose on it. You are truly free. Your life can change at any moment. You can make your life whatever you want it to be.