Purpose is the Spice of Life (Also)

Yesterday, I mentioned the idea that experience is the spice of life.  I was originally going to title that entry "Experience is a Spice of Life" but that came out sounding much weaker than using "the" instead.  The truth of the matter is that there is no single ingredient that will make life interesting or not.  Just like any real recipe, there are multiple factors at play.  Today I will mention the second major one that I keep coming back to:  Purpose.

Finding purpose in one's life and activities is not a given in adulthood.  This is unfortunate for people around my age (early 20s) because up until this point everything was given explicit purpose by external factors.  Life had purpose in school because of the superior authorities present in that environment.  The teacher assigns homework and the student either does or does not do it.  Either way there is a reaction.  If the student did the work their performance would be rated in the form of a grade, and this feedback would be largely responsible for the student's sense of performance and purpose.  If the student did not do the work, he/she would be punished for not fulfilling the obligation.  This also establishes a feeling of purpose and direction.

In a post-school environment, there is no external entity instilling a sense of direction or purpose in life.  There is no teacher telling you what it is you should be doing, and there is no gradebook anymore.  One is left to find their own motivation and this often is completely dependent upon a feeling of purpose once again.  Self-motivation can be difficult for people around my age, once again, because up until this point motivation was given to us.

So what hope is there for those of us in this situation?  Unfortunately, the answer appears to be years of struggling to adapt to the newfound vacuum of superior authority in adulthood.  Every person is likely to find his or her own way to cope with this fact.  There are no absolutes.  For me, it has meant depression.  I didn't even realize what was really missing until just recently, and the truly sad part about this is that until the problem is realized there can be no hope of resolution.  I've found that my job helps take over the role my school used to.  I'm still left to self-motivate for the most part, but it helps to have at least some kind of structure even if it is minimal.  My work helps to give my life purpose, but I still lack direction.

Purpose and experience are not the only spices of life, but they are two of the biggest.