When we think of our “purpose” we can define professional achievements, performance, personal or spiritual achievements. Most of my adult life, I had two distinct sets of goals: build a successful company, and live a spiritual life.
Until I took a break after high-school, I imagined life as a series of professional goals and material aspirations. The free time triggered an inward look, and I realized I didn’t want to live the American consumer lifestyle. I wanted an aligned existence, where my spirituality was meaningfully integrated into my life in service of a higher purpose.
After a lifetime focused exclusively on the material world, I had to start from the bottom. I found inspiration in writings from eastern and western contemplatives, old-world religions, and new age spiritual philosophies. When it came time to practically implement it, survival was the first challenge; how could I create a contemplative life if my most productive hours were given to soul-numbing studies or work?
I answered that question by leaving America for a lower-cost country. There I could contemplate my existence in beautiful surroundings, detached from the myriad distracting productions I was engaged in. This was my opportunity to re-examine and rebuild my life from the ground up.
Unsurprisingly, I learned that my existence was completely unaligned with any sort of life purpose (read Dabaism: The False Purpose). I had no solid concept of the nature of life itself, and my beliefs were easily traced to formal education, trendy beliefs, and various other commercial productions which didn’t survive even mild scrutiny. I valued material success and recognition above all else, and financial goals stood-in for a real life purpose. My spirituality was the most homegrown aspect of my worldview, but it was young, impractical, and detached from the life I actually lived.
Existential alignment isn’t something that happens overnight; the process has consumed years of my life, spanning two decades so far. I didn’t learn it all in order; I reached conclusions independent of one another, amid a life often lived in spiritual and professional turmoil.
An existentially-aligned life is where every action you take corresponds in some way to a set of beliefs and values, furthering your purpose in life. You must have a solid understanding of what life is, why you’re here experiencing it, and derivative beliefs, values, and goals. When your worldview and actions are harmonized, one is existentially aligned and living with purpose.
The foundation of the aligned existence is an understanding of what life is. If we don’t have an answer that stands up to scrutiny, then we must acknowledge that we do not know. And by extension, we are lost. When you admit that you are lost, you can start the search for an answer. But if you don’t admit that you are lost, then you are lost without even knowing it. It wasn’t until I was nearly 40 that I finally realized that I was lost here in life, despite a 20-year search for answers.
The search for and validation of a meaning of life will expose all of the inconsistencies in your worldview and behaviors, many of them uncomfortable. These are all opportunities for existential re-alignment, changing your values, goals, and ultimately behaviors. Although I couldn’t concisely articulate what life was until later in life, my search for answers demanded some very challenging changes to my comfortable life. The moment I stopped responding was the moment I stopped moving toward existential alignment.
I contend that most people are lost without knowing it, focused on living practical lives based on worldly goals and survival. As a result their existential suffering is misunderstood and often suppressed with medication and therapy. The decision to live an aligned existence will not alleviate all pain, but it will ignite a sense of purpose that will allow us to understand the suffering of life.
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