Have you ever asked someone where they wanted to go to eat and they say, “I don’t care,” except when you suggest a place they reject it…over and over and over again? The response you want to shout is, “So you do care?” In other words, they don’t know what they do want, but they seem pretty certain about what they don’t want. Well, you might not know what gives you meaning in life, but you do know what doesn’t. So let’s talk about how to start from that to get to what matters in life.
There can seem like a near-infinite number of things you can do with your life. You can spend your entire existence staring at a wall, or you can travel the world and see something new every single day. You can do tens of thousands of different types of jobs and have social or romantic relationships with nearly anyone out of the billions of people who exist in this world. So when people graduate from high school and see the thousands of schools and hundreds of majors or enter the workforce and see the plethora of different positions that they could apply for, it becomes overwhelming. Analysis paralysis is a real thing, causing many people to effectively do nothing instead of picking a direction and seeing where it takes them. Whether it’s because they don’t want to make a mistake or think they’ll get stuck with something they hate for a long time, they won’t make a decision.
Regardless of what’s causing you to be overwhelmed or non-committal, the fastest way to get a directionally correct answer regarding your path in life is to begin to narrow down from infinity to a narrower, easier-to-select-from set of options. This is similar to the idea of flipping a coin to make a decision: if you are happy or disappointed by the result of the coin flip, you have your answer. In this case, you can start in a variety of ways. The easiest way is to talk about things you like in life. Do you like being inside or outside? Do you like manual effort or thought work? Do you like socializing or being alone? Do you like attention or want to be behind the scenes? Do you need to have money to be happy? What lifestyle do you need to feel satisfied? By answering these questions, you categorically filter down options to a narrower and narrower set.
We use the same methodology when online shopping: you select what size you are to narrow down the clothing options available to the ones that fit; you select what color you want the product to be if it’s important to you. But, as we mentioned, if you can’t decide between options, you can use the process of elimination to filter out the things you don’t like until you get to what’s left to pick from. So if you don’t like large vehicles, you can filter them out. If you don’t like sales jobs, then eliminate them from your job search. As you cut down the millions of options, you’ll be left with a few that you can then compare more closely.
Meaning works the same way. What makes you happy? You might like food, exercise (or at least the endorphins afterwards), fresh air, friends, and music. You might not like traffic, running, or The Macarena. As such, you can make sure that you have life experiences involving more food and fresh air with less traffic and Macarena. As Sherlock Holmes famously said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbably, must be true.” When you eliminate the options in your life that you will never like, then whatever left must be what you should be doing instead.
Now, I should mention here that the snarky people of the world will retort here, “Everyone wants Ferraris, $500,000/year jobs, sex every day, and no work.” While it’s amusing, it’s not actually true. Not everyone wants an expensive car, as it requires a lot of money, maintenance, and worry about it being damaged. So while it sounds nice, it’s not universally desired. Additionally, money almost always requires effort, so maybe people only want to work enough to live and then spend their spare time doing other things. People want different amounts and types of sex, and many people enjoy their work. So while it sounds nice and simple to be so flippant, it’s just not the case that everyone wants exactly the same things like that.
Yes, everyone needs air, water, food, shelter, relationships, and some form of growth or direction in life. But how people decide to pursue those things can be different. As such, you will decide which foods you eat and don’t eat and which relationships you maintain or avoid. It’s for you to decide.
When you eliminate a whole slew of options for what you don’t want to do, you’ll be left with things that you are willing to do. You might hate cold weather, the beach, reading, pretentious people, or doing the dishes. Great. So move toward the equator, live inland, get your information verbally, go to dive bars, and eat out more often or hire a housekeeper. When you focus less on what you don’t like and more on what you do, you’ll begin to notice that you have more control over your life and how you feel about it than you realized.
So that’s how you begin to carve out your life path. It’s not about gathering information and making the perfect decision because your interests are subject to change. It’s about trying things, finding things you like and dislike, and moving toward doing more of what you like and less of what you don’t. As for trade-offs like work, you are welcome to decide whether you like money or the work you do more and see whether you live a wealthier life while doing something you don’t care for or live in less luxury but love what you do (note: you don’t always have to choose between these). As long as you note what you like to do and, just as important, what you don’t like to do, you are continuously getting greater and greater clarity around what you should do with your life.
One final check for you before the end of this post: always test your assumptions about things you don’t like. I know that when I was a kid, I was told that vegetables were undesirable and that I was supposed to hate running and love parties. It turns out that I like vegetables and running and hate parties. The sad truth, however, is that I never really ate vegetables until I was in my late teens and early twenties because I thought they were disgusting. If it weren’t for the fact that I ate dinner with a friend and felt obligated to eat some because they were offered to me, I would’ve never tried them and would be much less healthy as a result.
So don’t assume that just because someone else doesn’t like something that you won’t or that just because they find meaning in something that you will. It’s just not the case. You might sit at a parade wondering why people are happy watching people march past them, watch a sport wondering why anyone cares if the ball goes over the fence or in the net, or draw a picture and wonder why anyone would like putting pencil on paper. It’s okay that you don’t like what others like or find meaning in what they do. But you should try—you might like volunteering, woodworking, or surfing. You might not like them. As long as you consider or try them and eliminate them once you’ve determined they’re not for you, you can then have gotten value from those experiences and can now focus on what’s next or left to try to continue getting closer and closer to your purpose in life.