Why Am I Here? Finding Purpose in the Mundane

Money is an infinite resource – not in the sense that we can have as much as we want, whenever we want, but in the sense that we can trade as much time and energy for it, as much as we want. When working for a company, there is a limit to the amount of hours you can work. When working for yourself however, you can work as much or as little as you want. Since money provides a sense of security and power. For some, this turns on a switch in the brain that the more work they do, the more security and power they will have.

Remember in the Batman movie, when they say, "With great power, comes great responsibility."? This is an echo from Luke 12:48 "Everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." When an individual understands deeply, where their true fulfillment comes from and they choose to seek fulfillment over the money alone, this can provide an immense amount of meaning, value, contentment, and peace. If, and only if, the individual knows their limits. But how is this limit defined? There has to be a way to know, when enough is enough.

Does Money Buy Happiness?

In an article from the National Library of Medicine about money and happiness and the correlation between the two they said, “When does the importance of money increase or decrease? Based on Inglehart and colleague’s findings, the end of materialism hypothesis predicts that the income happiness correlation should get smaller as a society gets richer. This is because most people in a wealthy society are presumably no longer concerned about money per se, and instead are concerned about non-material issues such as self-expression. Under such a condition, self expression should become a stronger predictor of happiness than money…” 

This brings up a good point. When I started thinking about this, I was thinking of money earned AFTER basic needs have been met. Since basic needs means something different to each person, this further shows the importance of knowing when enough is enough. My boyfriend and I went to one of the minimalists live talks several years ago. During the show, they have people come up and ask questions. A musician walked up to the mic and said since he didn't know how much money he was going to make each month, he didn't understand how to create a realistic budget. Josh and Ryan, the minimalists, seemed so eager to answer his question. 

They met his question with a question, "What do you need each month?" Such a simple question, that has a different answer for each individual. Instead of basing our budget on our current situation, what if we looked at our life from a wider perspective? What if we asked ourselves, what type of lifestyle do we truly want to live? Then, in that thought process, ask what we would need to make that ideal lifestyle, possible? We truly do have so much control over our own happiness and fulfillment. Each individual has the power to decide what enough looks like for them. 

Unfortunately, we live in a world with MANY distractions, advertisements, and stimulants. Many times, I find that the strategy behind paid and unpaid advertisements is much more advanced than the product itself. When we invest more time in the strategy to get people to buy, more than we do on developing a product or service that truly adds value, our priorities are misaligned. In the quoted article I mentioned earlier, they quickly breezed past the fact that once people have enough money to meet their needs, their desires and motivations change. 

They go on to say, “In contrast, there is an alternative possibility; as a society gets richer, people’s desire for material goods could also grow… and the importance of money could get even larger.” Obtaining material goods is just another money chase with a different title. Self expression without action, is just white noise. Work your butt off for the nice house, then keep working for the nicer house. Work your butt off for the dream car, then keep working your butt off for an even better car. To what end? This “race” isn’t a race at all. It’s a hamster running on a stationary wheel, with a virtual reality headset on, but the hamster doesn’t know it’s looking at a fake reality.

This image was generated using ai. (Obviously, look at the proportions LOL)

This is what it looks like to chase after the idea of satisfaction and fulfillment, unknowingly going about it in all the wrong ways. Running and running, working and working, every single day, trying so hard to obtain something that always ends up being, just slightly out of reach. This is what it feels like to chase the money and materialistic things. There’s nothing wrong with having a lot of money, working a lot of hours, or having a lot of nice things. It only becomes a problem if all that hard work is simply to make more money and get nicer things. See the never ending cycle this creates? There will always be a nicer car, a bigger house, a better salary, a hotter wife, the list goes on. 

"Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'." -Victor Frankl

Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor wrote a book called “Mans Search for Meaning.” He says, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.” It’s not about “what” you’re doing, it’s about WHY you’re doing it. Michael Jr, a comedian and thought leader, does a great job illustrating the importance of this. 

In this video, he starts talking to a man in the audience who is a musical director. He assumes the man can sing and asks him to sing some of the song, Amazing Grace. He goes for it, he does a good job, and the audience claps. After that, Michael Jr asks him to do another version of the song, as if his Uncle just got out of jail and he got shot in the back as a kid, basically, give him the hood version of the song. Within the first few seconds of him beginning to sing, the entire audience begins to react. His voice fluctuates higher and lower than before, he gets more animated, and the audience begins to clap and stand in unison, and then someone even comes up and gives him a hug. Michael Jr points out the obvious difference, the first time he knew WHAT he was doing, the second time he knew WHY he was doing it. Michael Jr goes on to say, “When you know your why, your what becomes more impactful because you’re walking towards or in your purpose.”

One of my favorite Victor Frankl quotes is, “When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.” Why do you think people get so addicted to things like social media or drugs – we’re all searching for a deeper sense of meaning. While on that search, if we’re not careful, it’s easy to get sucked into things that provide pleasure, but end up simply being a distraction from what truly matters. Just another hit, just another peek, just 15 more minutes, just a few more likes, a few more followers, more, more more… to what end?

How do we find meaning or our own sense of deep purpose?

Alan Watts has an inspiring and profound speech all about this. I discovered it through a rap songs years ago. The first time I heard it, I rewinded it and listened to it multiple times. Watch it here:

He says, “We'd like to be painters, we'd like to be poets. We'd like to be writers, but as everybody knows we can't earn any money that way. What do you want to do? 

When we finally got down to something which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, you do that. and uhm, forget the money. 

If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don't like doing, which is stupid! It is absolutely stupid!

Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way. And after all, if you do really like what you're doing, it doesn't matter what it is – somebody is interested in everything, anything you can be interested in, you will find others will. 

But it's absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don't like, and to teach our children to follow in the same track. See what we are doing, is we're bringing up children and educating to live the same sort of lives we are living. 

In order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children, to bring up their children, to do the same thing, so it's all retch, and no vomit, it never gets there. 

Therefore, it's so important to consider this question: What do I desire?”

Why Am I Doing This?

When I first started my own business, it all began by helping other entrepreneurs. After working a few jobs after high school, I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t like someone else dictating my schedule or following rules, blindly. I worked so hard and saw areas that could be improved upon, but I was always met with “This is the way things have to be.” or “This is what this position requires of you.” I spent a year or so hiding out, praying, creating, painting, journaling, really digging deep and asking, “Is this it? Is this my life forever now? Following someone else’s schedule, someone else’s requirements all the time? When do I get to dictate the schedule or try new things and evoke change?”  

I’ve been an artist ever since I was old enough to hold a crayon. Design was never something I enjoyed in high school, but after graduating, I saw so many needs for it. There were many entrepreneurs doing great things, that didn’t have an eye for design. The spark started when I saw some people in a Facebook group trying to design little announcement flyers for their business. To be honest, most of the flyers they made themselves didn’t look very good. Instead of criticizing them, I used their work as inspiration to create something better. I took the information on their flyer and put something together in Canva with the same information, just a different design. I decided to send it to them through Facebook messenger. They were so thankful and happy, and really surprised that I took the time to help them for free. 

This little spark of joy I got from helping them is what started it all. I did this for a few other people and then started dabbling in logo design and then web design. After being really fed up with my current job one weekend, I decide to quit on Monday. I put in my two weeks and decided to venture out on my own, as an entrepreneur. Ever since then, I’ve realized there are problems all around us. When we choose to be problem solvers for other people, whether there is money involved or not, helping others can become deeply fulfilling. 

How to Live a Life of Purpose

As the years go by, I continue to learn and then use what I’ve learned to serve others. After having my own business for 6 years now, the learning and growing has become a little bit of an obsession. Now I understand, the more I learn, the more I can help people. The more I help people, the happier I feel! Since becoming obsessed with learning, the curiosity is never ending. Not because of how much money I could make, but because of how many people I can continue to help! 

Make a Difference in the Lives of Others

When we stop focusing only on ourselves and choose to focus on being a blessing to the people around us, our whole world looks different. It’s like looking at life through an entirely new set of lenses. (Remove the scales from my eyes, God!)

Instead of a fake reality and a never ending chase, every day becomes meaningful. Every problem becomes an opportunity. With this type of mindset, the more complicated the problem, the more enticing it becomes to solve.