Never Be Ready: Action, Freedom, Meaning

The state of being ready to act. Most people wait for this readiness.

They wait for a perfect moment, an internal signal of mystical proportions, the right feeling or emotion that tells them "now is the time."

Waiting for the right moment is not what creates failure; it's what creates lack of failure, lack of success. It's a perpetual limbo of being stuck.

The only thing that drives transformation and change is the ability to act without being ready.

The pattern is almost always the same. Those who do, succeed, or move are those who aren't ready. They become ready throughout the act.

People think that by avoiding discomfort, they will be safe. But life doesn't need your permission; it intrudes and offends all boundaries.

The feeling of "not being ready" is actually the only valid signal your body can give you to act; the impulse is not to wait, it's to do.

Each day spent waiting for readiness is the day your advantage moves out the window. While waiting for tomorrow to start, momentum is already being built elsewhere.

The real cost of waiting isn't time. It's compounding results, continuous change, and irreplaceable opportunity.

By the end of this article, you will know:

None of this is about tricks or motivation. It's simply the mechanics of how the body works for and against you. Whether you're moving somewhere, building a business, or pursuing a purpose, the principles and the body remain the same.

Readiness follows action, not the other way around. Those who understand this will reshape their lives so many times over, they will and are the mystical beings living in the regular world.

Readiness Is Overrated

Being "ready" is terribly irrelevant to progress. This is the core of reality.

What truly matters on a personal level is any type of action, even more so, especially so when you are not ready. The action defines the actor.

When was the last time you were actually ready for something?

Are parents ready to have a child? Truly?

Are employees perfect for their new job?

Are entrepreneurs so smart and effective that they start a business?

Readiness is just a myth to justify lack of action.

The Three Archetypes of Action

In terms of actually categorizing people as starters, those who act—there are only three archetypes that relate to all people:

Eternal Preparer

This type of person always needs "one more thing" before starting whatever. I've been this person way too many times, unfortunately.

Constantly researching, constantly learning but not executing anything. The knowledge is dead without implementation.

The preparation itself is a shield against failure; it's an avoidance mechanism.

The result of this: they almost never start anything.

Impulsive Bouncer

This type of person starts anything and everything without much thought or preparation.

Enthusiasm, momentary motivations, and desires are what they rely on. Because of this, they often burn out and crash quickly.

The result of this: few completions, many false starts, and high hopes.

Strategic Initiator

This type of person is well aware that readiness is built throughout the process of getting somewhere or doing something.

The minimum viable preparation is the only thing they need to move forward; they don't need a lot to progress.

The first steps are calculated and well determined; it's not a gimmick, it's purposeful.

The result of this: consistent growth, progress, and continuation.

Mechanisms of Starting (Applicable to All Archetypes)

This is applicable to all people, regardless of their archetype of progression.

They all have an initial trigger of some sort.

It could be an internal trigger, such as a motivation, a decision, an emotion, or ruminating thought.

It could be an external trigger, such as an opportunity, a deadline, or an idea proposed by others.

The thing about triggers: they only trigger the movement. It's not a guarantee of anything. Anybody can start, to be quite honest.

After the trigger, people move into the action phase.

It never requires feeling ready; it simply requires inputs. Minimal movement is needed; large distances are created of small measurement units.

Examples of this are:

This is where a lot of people fall off; the initial driving movement is not substantial enough to keep them going. It might not even be stimulating enough.

And the action is preceded by a collective of momentum; actions create their own energy. Small decisions build confidence in yourself and your decision.

Readiness is being built up from the ground up by doing things, not before doing something.

What worked for me is to simply not be ready. I try to figure out what I want to do.

I then identify the smallest possible action to begin. I prepare what I need to do it and count from 5 down to 1. At one, I physically move or do something toward this action.

I continue working on this task for 30 seconds, and the rest is history. The momentum carries me forward.

Why It Works

The brain is a comedy. It has a hard time remaining anxious about an action if you are physically moving towards it. The anxiety might grow in power, and that can be off-putting to some, but that can be solved with exposure, chemicals, and thought processes.

But the idea remains that by moving towards the goal quickly with a small step, you are killing the waiting paralysis. You just have to be conscious enough to even be able to make a decision of your accord.

For someone like me, who is neurodivergent, action is a little bit more difficult. For somebody else, it's a no-brainer; they just do what they want. In any case, it works.

Try doing it with washing the dishes or throwing out garbage. Stand in front of the sink, look at the dishes, decide you are going to wash them. Count from 5 to 1, and do it.

If you did it, you stayed true to yourself. This builds a feedback loop. The more you do it, the better you get.

I used to be incapable of going to a grocery store because of fear of people. I used to be incapable of talking to a person I know because of my own thoughts. I used to be incapable of being productive because I chose to remain in unconscious waves of consuming social media.

These are just brief examples, but the model of doing something right away helped me so much.

Common Objections and the Reality

What if I make mistakes? Some people are really worried about failure, and it really irks them deeply. There are various reasons for this, but that's for another article.

The reality is that you will make mistakes. It's not a bug of action; it's a feature of progression. Mistakes and failures are simply new information that you can use to improve your next steps.

Some people need to feel confident before starting. "I need to be totally aware and conscious, totally prepared to do this."

Well, the reality is that confidence comes from competence. And you can't get competent at something by not doing it; you need to do it. You can read about it, you can watch some videos—but it doesn't get you far enough.

Competence is a byproduct of action. And action comes from starting before you are ready. I used to be bad at basketball, then I became good. Why? Because I practiced.

Some people don't start because they are thinking about other people. "Oh, but those people know what they are doing; I'm insufficient enough. I'm not good enough."

Well, if you take it down to the start, and someone seems to be doing it, but yet they just started—the reality is they probably don't know what they are doing yet.

They might just be better at hiding uncertainty, or they've already dealt with it by realizing that starting is where the power is.

The Framework for Action

Here's a very practical, simple as pie framework that you can apply to start acting.

First, you need the MVP. You need to be minimally viably prepared; this is not the same as ready, and is tailored for each task differently.

Find out what is the absolute minimum you need. If you need to make a video, you probably already have a camera. Just because you aren't making a video because you don't have the latest camera gear doesn't mean you can't make a video.

You're making excuses. Get or recognize the minimum elements needed.

After that, set a real hard deadline. No more than 24 hours.

This should be followed by a mechanism that triggers you to do the task.

Create some sort of external accountability. It can be a friend, it can be a calendar event, it can be an alarm. You should know yourself better and realize what's the most useful to you.

Make the first action ridiculously small. If it's a 10-minute video, record 30 seconds. If you have free time at 6 p.m., make an alarm at 6:15—don't snooze it. Just do it.

This can be followed by a point of no return. This enhances your workflow and progression. You must create your problems and situations to be continuous, harder to stop than to do.

Another tip is to create a momentum plan. If you know what your first step is, spend a little more time planning your next three small steps. Each step small and specific.

Focus on the physicality of it, not the readiness of your mind.

If you're wanting to write a blog post:

What about SEO? Monetization? Audience?

You're overthinking things. If you're just starting, you're a nobody.

Nobody cares, nobody knows.

The SEO, the monetization, the audience comes after.

You need competence, you need confidence.

This comes from doing something, not from waiting or learning about all the secrets.

Therefore, your action plan for today is to identify the one thing you've been waiting to feel ready for. If something has been on your mind, put it out on paper, materialize the thought.

If it's something large, break it down to the smallest first action. Nothing else.

Use the 5-second rule and take the action. A great way to enhance the experience is to document what happened, what you learned, and if you got distracted, how.

Just do one thing today. That's it. Tomorrow, repeat with something else, something new.

Just remember that readiness is not a prerequisite for you. It's the result of taking the action despite not being ready.

Triggers of Action

I'd like to expand a little bit on action and how it is triggered, so that you can better understand yourself.

In my experiences traveling to over 26 countries, working in various fields of play, and speaking to all kinds of people, there are only three things that get you moving:

Self-Initiated Action

This is the type of action that you consciously choose in order to push through discomfort and just start. It's the rarest of forms because it requires personal accountability and some stronger inner impulse.

Pressing your own start button isn't so easy when you don't really have a self to begin with.

External Accountability

This is the type of action that is initiated by somebody or something else: a mentor, a partner, a coach, a friend. They force you to begin, or at least create the inner motions that help you make the choice.

These people often don't care about your excuses; the simplicity of the decision to them is off-putting because they have no idea why you're not doing it.

It's like at a job: when your boss tells you to do it, most likely, you're going to do it.

Circumstantial Pressures

This is the type of action initiated by life itself, where it seems to be a "do or die" situation.

Maybe you're about to lose your job, maybe you hit rock bottom, maybe you're facing a health crisis. Life doesn't ask for you to be ready; it demands action and responsibility.

The Fallacy of Comfort

Here's something that nobody wants to tell you about the comfort zone.

The fact that you're comfortable in it doesn't mean it's comfortable. Comfort kills potential; it reduces you and your psyche to what you are in that moment.

And the moment can last a lifetime. Each day spent waiting for readiness in your current condition is a day spent on losing opportunities, strengthening your fears, weakening your resolve, diminishing your confidence.

It binds you in a circle of discouragement. When you get too acquainted and fascinated by your little world, the larger world simply doesn't interest you.

The Control Illusion: What You Actually Control

We live in an odd time, a great time. The brain isn't designed for the types of control we are trying to exert in our daily, modern life.

We try to manage variables that the brain and body simply didn't have the opportunity to consider, over many generations.

Social media perceptions, opinions of thousands of acquaintances, global economy fluctuations, career paths that simply didn't exist.

The two categories that rule everything and bind everything under its broad umbrella are things you can influence and things you cannot control.

You can influence:

You cannot control:

You need to be vigilant and critical. You need to let go of what you can't control and be more cautious with what you can influence.

Why True Boundaries Create Liberation

Think about any type of sport, soccer, basketball, whatever.

In basketball, the sport is meaningless without boundaries. No rules, no court lines, no means to keep score. The game constraints create the conditions for flow and mastery.

Life works similarly, because all things are modeled on life. Clear decisions are created by clear boundaries. Defined limits force attentive action. Self-imposed constraints remove decision fatigue.

When a river flows across a plain, it spreads thin, becomes shallow and loses power. But when the water is channeled through a canyon of narrow width, the same water will carve through solid stone and rock.

Attention of the human kind works in the same way. Spread your attention to anything you could control, and cannot, your attention will become weak.

Focus your attention only on what you can control, can influence, and thus, your attention becomes the force that reshapes your entire life.

Three Categories of Boundaries

When it comes to actually setting boundaries, there are three categories. Physical, mental, behavioral. Let's take a look at each.

Physical Boundaries:

Mental Boundaries:

Behavioral Boundaries:

Emotions As Information Inputs

For most of my life, I treated my emotions as malfunctions of the body.

Anger meant to me that I wasn't enlightened enough to be peaceful.

Sadness meant that I simply wasn't grateful enough for what I have.

Fear meant to me that I wasn't courageous or brave enough.

Trying to maintain some sort of emotional balance exhausted me. This led me to believe that feeling anything other than mild contentment was a mistake, an error or failure.

Resistance made it worse. Suppressed anger became resentment. Avoiding sadness prevented me from processing errors or loss. Fighting my fear turned it into anxiety.

The shift of value came when I treated my emotions like the weather. A natural phenomenon that appears, brings information and passes. Instead of trying to figure out "how to get rid of the feeling," I taught myself to recognize "what the feeling was trying to tell me."

Anger gives us a signal that some boundary was crossed. Instead of being judgmental, I investigate what's important to me and what needs to be protected.

Sadness indicated that I had lost something or lost touch with myself. Instead of trying to feel better, I gave room to grieve, to get back in touch with my true self.

Fear pointed me towards something that mattered. Instead of thinking fear is a weakness, I saw it as guidance towards something worthy of pursuit.

Anxiety revealed misalignment between what I'm doing and what I think is valuable, or warning me of something that needs attention.

Whenever I stopped fighting against emotions and being aware of them, they became useful datasets instead of disruptions. They appear, deliver the message, and subside. Trying to control them made them last, made them worse, made them stronger.

Letting them pass doesn't mean you let them control you, it doesn't mean you're passive. It means you are using the information to make better decisions, to understand life better.

Why Money Is Overcomplicated Relative to Action

I thought I would also address the financial questions relative to action, because most people are indoctrinated with money being the end-all, be-all.

Many people will only do something if they think it will bring them money. And most people treat larger amounts of money as if it's an alien species, because in a way it is.

They will casually spend $20 on a meal, but freeze up when trying to figure out how to make $100k from a new possibility. It is a mental block that kills your potential and stops you in your tracks.

Money is just money. Whether it's $10 million or $10, it operates by the same silly rules.

The only difference between the two is scale. That's it.

On a regular median, a $5 coffee is OK. A $50,000 car payment may seem huge. And a $5 million house feels totally impossible.

But it's all just numbers. The mechanics of the money have not changed; only the zeros.

If small money is like doves and sparrows, they are common, all over the city, and easy to understand.

Big money is just more of the same birds; it's not a different type of creature. It's not a lion or a tiger.

The problem is that people treat abundance as an exotic species, but it's just a larger flock. The error of the psyche in regards to money costs you opportunity.

What Happens in Your Mind with Larger Numbers

What actually happens in the mind when you are facing larger numbers is quite simple.

You are experiencing the familiarity bias, because the brain is only comfortable with what it knows.

You are intimidated by scale; larger numbers trigger fear within you and the inner patterns built over time.

And you are protecting your identity, because the brain will resist any type of wealth that does not match your self-image.

The most peculiar thing to me is that almost half of large lottery winners go broke after 2 years, again. Why? Because their competence, their self-image, and their knowledge does not match the larger scale of money.

The Reality Check

When you see a $30,000 car—that makes sense to a regular person.

When you see a $300,000 house—that's a big decision, wow.

When you see a $3,000,000 business—that's for other people.

This is sabotage. This type of thinking prevents action from the get-go.

To build wealth, not to be born into it, you need to rewire the mind.

You need to understand that money follows the same rules, regardless of scale.

You need to recognize that larger scale of money is a structure of accumulated small decisions.

You need to realize that large numbers are small numbers multiplied.

You need to remove emotional barriers preventing you from thinking bigger.

If you want to be a millionaire for whatever reasons, you need to break it down to familiar units.

Instead of freezing up about the thought, ask yourself "what the mechanism would be?"

Focus on the process that leads to the large amount, not the zeroes.

Train yourself to see the opportunities in between, not the obstacles.

Some people will say "I've never handled large amounts of money...," and that's okay. Neither had any successful person not born into wealth when they started. Experience comes from doing, not waiting to be ready, remember?

Oh, but "it's different when it's millions...," well, the principles are identical. Only the stakes and the rewards change. Many birds, not different birds.

Wait, but "that's for people who...," just stop. This is yourself limiting yourself. Wealth doesn't care about your background; money doesn't care about you. It's on every street corner, in every store, as part of all aspects of our modern life.

Addressing Mental Blocks

The only way to address these mental blocks is to address them head-on.

You must audit your money thinking. Notice when you dismiss larger amounts as impossible. Catch yourself when you think it's not for you. Replace the limits with possibilities: how could I achieve that? What would it take?

Next, you practice thinking in scale. Take any transaction you're comfortable with; multiply it by 10, 100, then 1000. Notice your emotional reactions, feel yourself. Challenge yourself.

Larger spends have a relative cost. You can't get wealthier if your mind is broke.

Make decisions today as if you're already handling more, taking on more. Apply the same diligence to any $100 you would spend as you would with $100,000.

Allocate your money better: assets, investments, products, courses, software.

Build habits that scale you up, not bring you down. You can buy a $5 coffee from Starbucks, or you can buy $20 Starbucks coffee at the grocery store and make yourself coffee for a month. Now you've saved $130 that you can spend on something else.

Your relationship with money determines the financial ceiling. The moment you stop treating abundance as fundamentally different from regular money, you will see opportunities everywhere.

Money is a tool. Scale is multiplication. Wealth is consistent application. Mindset is the barrier.

The Financial Growth Truth

To make it even more simple, for a digital world, the real difference between small and large money amounts comes down to four things.

But nobody is denying the basics, on which all of the four differentiators are built on:

The pitfalls you want to avoid are simple as well. The trap of complexity tells you that big money requires complicated strategies. It comes with thinking you might need insider knowledge and assuming there are secrets you are missing out on.

Next, you have to face the crisis of identity. You need to stop waiting "to become the person who makes big money." You need to stop thinking you need to change who you are, and start thinking to change "how" you are.

And finally, you are misconceived about skills. You think you need an entirely new skill set, and you believe your current abilities don't scale, and you undervalue your current capabilities. You already have in you the building blocks for anything.

Only man creates from images in his mind, real material things; this is a gift from God. If it's put to good use, you're well off.

Action vs. Consumption

Let me be direct, as someone who spent way too much time consuming content, I can share some very insights.

You're consuming way too much content and taking very little action. And now I need to explain why it matters, why it's holding you back, and what to do instead.

Here's what most people do. They watch video after video about personal development, success, money, or whatever. Not to mention, most content consumed is trash content, purely for entertainment.

Because of this, they feel they are progressing towards something, because they are learning. But this is just a consumption loop.

The Consumption Loop

It goes like this:

The cycle is dangerous. It creates an illusion of progress; it keeps you exactly where you are. The brain is well-designed; it does what it needs to do greatly.

It releases chemicals when you are consuming this content; because of this, it feels good. You get excited by the possibility. The problem is that the chemicals are working for your body, but not for you.

The brain in which you operate is registering the feelings of progress without any achievement. You are eating the menu; you are not eating the meal. You consume the process and leave nothing to do.

The costs of consuming content endlessly are time, results, momentum, opportunity.

Each hour spent watching videos is an hour spent not doing something you could be doing otherwise. Because social media is designed to steal your attention, you stay there for long. Reacting instead of acting.

Each unit of action is minus one unit of reaction.

Each unit of reaction is minus one unit of action.

Action creates momentum; reactive consumption kills it. Knowledge without any application in the end results in zero progress.

In terms of opportunity, while you are watching, others are doing.

You are consuming somebody's doing. You are the product.

Learning Through Action

The most valuable progress occurs through action, not consumption.

If we apply the Pareto principle to progress, we can look at this way.

20% of your success comes from your knowledge base. If you are in your 20s right now, you already know a lot. You are an extension of the internet.

80% of your success comes from action, implementation, and adjustment. If you're doing very little, you still get 80%. But 80% of not a lot is even less than not a lot.

In one hour of doing, you learn more than you would learn in 10 hours of watching something. Idle watching is even worse, because you're not taking notes, you're not processing consciously, and you're not applying it to real problems.

Personal mistakes teach you more than perfect examples. Every great story has distress, danger, risk, mistakes, and errors. There's not a single story that does not have it.

Not a single book, not a single movie, not a single video. Mistakes are life.

Taking Control of Your Consumption

If you want to control your life more, and you find it relevant to you, do this:

Create a hard limit on your consumption. If you're watching 6 hours a day, make it 2 hours a day. Restrict yourself to 2 sources of consumption, preferably to something you resonate with an actionable drive. Less motivational content, more implementable content.

For every piece of content you consumed, take a couple of actions. If you watched a video on graphic design, finish the video. Open up any graphic design app you have access to, or a pen and paper, and draw something, create something.

Document the results, not the plans. Measure progress in real outcomes in relation to the content you consume.

And to take it up a notch, schedule implementation times. When watching content, make notes. During these scheduled times, implement what you learned. Set environmental cues for acting, and remove additional consumption temptations.

You need to control your consumption or it will control you. Even though I'm a fan of not doing to do more. You need to have some control over your life.

Make it simple, relevant to you. If content is your life, train yourself to not consume content before noon. If you have time to work on something in the morning, dedicate your first hours to action. Review results before learning something new.

Document your tangible progress, adjust on real results and mistakes. Do more, consume less.

If you're feeling brave enough, share publicly. Share with friends, family, anybody. Report your actions completed, not your intentions.

Don't just be a talker, be a doer. If you are having trouble, find a mentor who is action-focused. Find somebody who does more than you, find out why, find out how.

The reality of all this: most people won't take any action after reading this, and that's OK. They'll keep planning, keep watching, keep learning. Why?

Action is uncomfortable; why wouldn't it be?

Action means:

In a way, you are facing death itself. You're at a crossroads right now.

You finish reading, and find something else to read or watch. That's OK, nobody cares.

Or this is the final piece of content for today; you take some sort of immediate action on something you've already learned. Just do it.

The Challenge

Here's a challenge for today and tomorrow; see if you can do it. If you don't want to, that's fine. But if you can't challenge yourself, how will you deal with somebody else challenging you?

Here's your plan:

The world does not need more readers and viewers. It needs more creators and doers. The question is never about what you will learn next; it's about what you will do with what you already know.

Your next move matters a lot more than any next video you can watch. Close this stupid website, start doing. It's over.

Anybody who takes imperfect decisions will outperform anybody who plans but never starts.

The Search for Meaning

Searching for meaning is a prison in itself. Meaning is already made and prevalent.

I've met people and been in situations myself chasing cosmic signs, awaiting for grand revelations, or hunting for a singular purpose as if meaning is a treasure buried away, waiting to be uncovered.

What if meaning isn't something you find or come across? What if it's something that's given to you in raw form, and changed by how you create, cultivate and choose it in your daily life?

Through years of struggle with existential purpose, I've determined three distinct sources from which meaning emerges. Understanding this and how they interact with each other helped me free myself from endless searching, and simply move on forward with meaning.

Three Sources of Meaning

Most of the meaning we have flows from the springs of life: transcendent Godly connection, personal creation and worldly engagement. None of these are mutually exclusive, they overlap, influence one another and work best in combination.

Transcendent Meaning

The transcendent meaning comes from connecting with something beyond yourself, whether through religion, philosophy, spirituality or acknowledging God as the greatest wonder in existence.

For those with strict religious faith, this is a relationship with the living God, serving a higher purpose or following a sacred teaching. For others, it's discovering God's work in nature, connecting with universal principles of justice and love, and/or accepting profound secrets of existence and consciousness.

The power of God and the transcendent lies in the ability of the "meaning" and your struggles to be placed within a larger context. When you are connected with God, more than yourself, temporary setbacks are not devastating as much, daily actions carry much deeper significance.

The challenge with this type of meaning: Transcendent meaning can be paralyzing if you wait for revelations, signs or permission to act. God loves when you seek for him, actively. It becomes destructive when you use transcendental excuses to avoid personal responsibility or to dismiss legitimate concerns of our daily earthly existence.

Worldly Engagement

The worldly engagement of meaning is derived from the roles, relationships and contributions within the ever-expanding human culture. It includes the impact of yourself on others, and theirs on you. The creative and professional contributions, your participation in community, and your response to the challenges and possibilities of your moment in history.

Worldly meaning can emerge from solving problems with work, raising children, fighting for justice, creating art, or being a reliable friend. It's the meaning that comes from realizing your interdependence with the world around you, and choosing to contribute positively rather than negatively. But you do you.

The meaning is tangible and immediate. You can see the effect, the impact day in, day out. Thus, you can adjust your approach through the feedback the world gives you in return.

The challenge of worldly meaning: It can be shallow if it's based on social status, external validation or propping up the ego. It's also often fragile, dependent on people's reactions, circumstances and systems outside of your control.

Personal Creation

The meaning of personal creation is the one you actively create with your values, narrative and choices that create your daily life. It's your standards, your personal philosophy and the identity you craft consciously or unconsciously through your actions.

This meaning emerges when you determine what matters and live in alignment with what matters. It's the satisfaction, or drip-fed affirmation of being the person you choose to be, regardless of external circumstances thrown at you.

It can mean living in truth, valuing honesty or something opposite. It means deciding that pursuing growth and learning matters. It can mean committing to treating yourself and others with dignity is a higher value.

The challenge with personally created meaning: Personal things can become too full of themselves, become narcissistic if it ignores the union with the world and others. It can be overwhelming if you place burdens of meaning-creation only on your own will.

How They Work Together

The greatest sense of meaning in life comes from when the three sources create symbiotic reinforcement rather than having to compete with one another.

Your connection with God can inform your choices in the world, if you believe in love as a principle, that shapes how you treat others. Your worldly engagement can enhance your personal values, where serving others clears up what you care about. Your personal decisions can open you to more transcendent experiences, where you decide practice gratitude to the greatest creator of all time.

Rather than relying on a single source of meaning, or a monochrome response to the greatest question ever, consider how you can cultivate multiple meanings into one.

Acknowledge mystery. Whether you believe in God or don't care, stay open to wonder and awe, the limits of your comprehension will keep you humble and connected to something much bigger and greater.

Engage carefully with the world. Your work, social participation and relationships matter. Look for ways how you can enhance your daily life without losing yourself in the expectations of others. Be useful to others and keep true to yourself.

Develop conscious meaning. Take accountability for your choices and values. Realize how they thread the entire worldview you have and align with the other two. Build a philosophy and identity that reflects what you care about, not what you are under the impression you should care about.

Instead of asking "What is my purpose?" try finding out: "Given the transcendent values I understand, the context of the world I live in, and the person I want to be, what meaning can I create today to make myself and the world a better place?"

This will move you from a passive seeker to an active creator. You won't be stuck waiting for a meaning to be revealed. You will decide what's meaningful in accordance with the higher power and live out that decision.

This doesn't guarantee satisfaction or remove struggles, it replaces the exhaustion felt when using energy to seek for something you can never find. You are the author of the meaning, not its victim.

Choosing to show up persistently for what matters, adjusting your inputs for better outputs, and being open to greater sources of significance is not glamorous, it's hard.

Regardless, this work might be the most important thing you can do. Because a life lived with intentional meaning, even if imperfect, will outcompete a life spent searching for meaning, for a perfect purpose that may never ever come.