Prospection plays a large role in living a healthy life by giving meaning to each of our daily actions. For example, the act of skipping your daily iced coffee wouldn’t hold significance unless you anticipated using the money you saved. However, starting from the Covid-19 pandemic that devastated the world to the current growing prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI), all illusions of predictability have shattered, and we are now struck in the face by the horrifying truth: our future is never guaranteed. This realization has caused the world, subconsciously or not, to endure a state of grieving over the losses of our hopes and purposes. Because no matter what you do, the world inevitably finds a way to obstruct all of your plans. That job you wanted? There has just been a new AI that has been developed that can do it for the companies. You want kids? Well, we are not sure if global warming will even let our Earth be habitable for that long. The world has lost its anchor, and we have spent the past few years floating along with the current of the cosmos. However, we can not simply let Fate take the reins of our future and dictate what will happen to us. In letting ourselves become the ones to define our own beings by practicing Existentialist principles, we must restore control over our own lives.
Before discussing how to find our life’s purpose, we must first understand what the nature of our existence entails. For the point of my article, I will use the definition from the philosophical movement Existentialism: our existence precedes our essence. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, a French philosopher and playwright, “the first principle of existentialism means first, that man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and only afterwards, defines himself.” Man is essentially nothing and his totality must be gained through modifying the nothingness that he is initially given. Of course that does not mean that aspects of our existence do not affect our lives. However, humans retain the ability to rise above these physical qualities and carve out the life they want through their choices and decisions. Our desires and passions are what shape our lives more so than the pre-existing qualities. Human nature is undefinable because we start off with nothing and build ourselves up after. Thus, every human being is given the ability to shape their purpose in life.
Once we have established that we are in control of our lives, how exactly do we go about choosing a purpose for ourselves? Well, first, we must accept the instability and ambiguity of being human. There will always be risks and responsibilities that come with striving after a goal. However, just because our existence is obscure does not mean that we cannot try and find meaning within the vagueness. In “Being and Nothingness,” Sartre tries to provide a definition for the uncertainty stating, “The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed.” This means that the opaque nature of our existence is the very basis of our ability to exert freedom over our existence. Therefore, instead of perceiving the unpredictability as a threat to your state of being, think of it as an enforcer of your freedom.
Unfortunately, because we claim that our existence is explicated by its nothingness, we are faced with the burden of constant choices. This absence of a concrete self places the responsibility of our life on us — constructing it so that our ability to give meaning to our life determines the nature of our existence. To overcome this, we have to realize that this anxiety of choice is not directed towards yourself, but the predicament that the external world may not allow you to follow through with the goal that you have chosen to define yourself as. However, Existentialism puts you as the center of your world, to yourself you are the embodiment of freedom. Therefore, the source of possibilities and options is not from the realm that you are in but from yourself. Thus, if you choose, you are able to pursue it in reality.
But, how can we define what we want to be? You must model your life after what kind of person you want to be when stripped of all your physical possessions. Oftentimes, people try and determine who they want to be by setting physical goals, such as setting a job or certain college as your defining purpose for life. However, those aims depend solely on whether the physical world around you allows you to have it. Sartre coined this concept as “bad faith” which is explained as the act of defining oneself with physical properties such as your job, race, or economic class. One must realize that their situations must not transcend their fundamental societal role: to be human. And that because we are human we are both nothing and everything — a void with the power of infinite possibilities. To get out of such bad faith, you have to realize what your existence and your identity are when completely removed from the material projections that you associate with yourself.
Even though the concept of taking on the responsibility of creating your own purpose may seem like a daunting task, it is an essential one. Human beings are such complex creatures, driven by the greater purpose that without it, we simply cannot strive. Unfortunately, the world’s evolving and changing nature continually hinders our pursuit of a reason or our life. This has caused a need to find it from your internal world, where only you can alter it if you wish. Thus, we must all try and help identify our values to create our most meaningful life and find our story.
