Why bother?

The world is complex, beautiful and, at times, downright brutal. In the face of this, it would be easy to become nihilistic. I often ask myself why bother? Read this and you will have some answers.

At the moment, I  am running a business, building a house, having children, writing a book, and turning up to Jiu Jitsu.

Why am I doing these things in the grand cosmic scheme of things? 

Carl Jung, answers this brilliantly: “Choose who you want to be or the world will choose it for you.”

I am choosing to be the person who works on these problems (you could also call them goals). 

So I created a business that would help one person every day,

I ventured into building a house for my family and friends to have fun,

Have children because they bring so much love,

Writing a book to gain wisdom,

Turn up to Jiu Jitsu to seek mastery.

None of those things are easy, but by seeking out my problems I create a sense of autonomy over my life, which psychologists would call the locus of control.  The bonus is that by choosing my problems and directing my energy towards them, I create my own sense of purpose and meaning.  I am writing the story of my life the way I wish it to be told.

To borrow from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:

 “People who find their lives meaningful usually have a goal that is challenging enough to take up all their energies, a goal that can give significance to their lives.  We may refer to this process as achieving purpose.”

Whether you call them goals or problems to solve it's all the same thing.

You are choosing to direct your energy towards something. You are willing to suffer for it, both in the Buddhist sense of desiring and clinging and in the sometimes very physical sense of expenditure of energy and hard work.

By consciously choosing my problems I can reconcile stress, suffering, uncertainty and physical pain for those things when they are in alignment with my values and beliefs.

Help one person every day, have fun, love, gain wisdom and seek mastery.

It is the ultimate power move, to truly understand what you believe in and what you are willing to suffer for.  If left unchecked, we will be run by our biological impulses and the values and beliefs of our parents, family, friends, media and me writing to you.  But ask yourself this, at your age now, in your life right now, do you still want your life being steered by somebody else or do you want to take hold of the steering wheel and drive it yourself?

You choose.

Much love, Peter

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