“Live life with passion and pursue excellence in everything I do.” If you were to ask me what the purpose of life is for me, this is how I’d answer you.
As you can see, the purpose of my life is NOT to achieve; but to pursue. The purpose of my life is NOT the goal itself, but the journey in quest of the goal. The purpose of my life is to set the bar high and then to passionately climb the mountain of success to attempt to reach the summit. But it’s the climb that matters; not reaching the summit. Reaching the summit is life’s unique bonus!
The Happiness Barrier
Too many people struggle with life because they are attached to results. In other words, if they achieve their goals they will be happy. If they don’t, they won’t. Struggle is self-induced. When we place conditions on our happiness, we build barriers to happiness. I call these barriers “If this, then that conditions.” And in most cases for most people, the barrier to living a rich, fulfilling life and finding the right job is attachment to specific outcomes.
Steve Job’s Commencement Address at Stanford University
Anxiety, stress, depression, and despair originate from being attached to a desired outcome. In his book The Four Desires, Rod Stryker says that contrary to what most people believe, “those who make non-attachment a regular part of their daily lives live longer – and, dare I say, more happily!”
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple delivered the 2005 commencement address at Stanford University. The general message, by way of telling his personal story, was that in 1984, he was fired from the company that he co-founded (Apple). This highly publicized event was a devastating blow to him. But he had a passion for his work and the contributions his work made to so many, that he detached himself from the situation (of being fired), and pursued new opportunities.
Said differently, Steve Jobs told the Stanford University audience that success and happiness comes from being fully engaged in the pursuit of worthy goals, but detached from outcome. The often heard cliché sums up the message well: “It’s not whether you win or lose that counts, it’s how you play the game.”
Live Life Skillfully
If you are to be genuinely happy and sustain a level of happiness throughout your life, while living in a world that that is not committed to your happiness and well-being, you must develop a strategy to approach life skillfully. And the secret to accomplishing this is to be fully engaged in every aspect of your life – but detached from outcome. In other words, enjoy the journey in pursuit of the outcome. In the case of searching for a job most people approach the process of getting a new job in a boring and often painful, fear based way. But in a job campaign, you learn to focus on opportunity and discover methods to maximizing positive emotions. That’s the REAL secret to being happy and learning how to enjoy your job search.