Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - Life Purpose in 20 Minutes exercise

Wolborg · 06-09-2009, 09:01 PM

I would like to share with you my experience with the exercise "How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes".

I did the exercise about 8 hours after I first saw the blog post describing it.

I had slight doubts as to the possibility of finding out my life's true purpose so easily, but I wanted to give it a try. I thought that in my case, the exercise would take rather much time, and when I started writing, I thought that maybe I shoud quit after 1 hour, but I was unable to make up my mind about that.

It so happened that I found out my life's true purpose on step 40, after only a few minutes.

I began by writing down a goal that is my biggest conscious desire in this moment, and kept writing new items, not caring that much of the stuff I wrote was silly. Occasionally, I repeated something I had written before, and a few times I just wrote "I don't know". But I kept writing line after line.

On step 30-something, my ideas turned to my childhood. On step #38, I wrote: "To get back the dear toys of my childhood." (This is the translation into English.) Suddenly, I felt my eyes filling with tears. I thought: am I crying yet? No, this is propably one of those "mini-surges of emotion" Mr. Pavlina had mentioned. Besides, that "purpose" was obviously absurd. So I decided to write on. I wrote something different as item #39. On step #40, I couldn't think of anything better than repeating item #38 word by word. And then I found my self undoubtedly crying. I kept crying whenever I read those words or repeated them in my mind, and I'm still crying as I'm writing this.

I should explain what that phrase means. When I was 9 years old, my parents and I moved from a little township to a big city. Shortly before we moved, my parents threw away many of my toys without telling me. They obviously thought that I was big enough not to care about all that stuff, but it did hurt to see them in the dumpster like that. It's not like I was left without toys or something, but today it somehow seemed to me that I had lost pretty much all of them as we moved to the city.

Anyway, the supposed true purpose of my life that was revealed to me so dramatically today can impossibly be my true purpose. Firstly, it's physically impossible to get those toys back after almost 30 years – they have certainly dissolved to elements by now. Secondly, they don't really matter that much to me anymore. Thirdly, even if they hadn't and if they did, a quest to find and get back the toys thrown away 30 years ago would be utterly stupid and pointless.

But that's what Mr. Pavlina's exercise spat out as my life's true purpose.

I'm not asking you to tell me what to do. I didn't write this in order to get any advice. I just wanted to shake Mr. Pavlina's confidence in this execise a little bit. :-)

I don't mind if you find this funny. I bursted out laughing when I read Mr. Pavlina's result, so you're allowed to laugh at my "true purpose" too.

06-09-2009, 09:01 PM	#1 (permalink)
Wolborg Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 6	Life Purpose in 20 Minutes exercise – rather weird result I would like to share with you my experience with the exercise "How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes". I did the exercise about 8 hours after I first saw the blog post describing it. I had slight doubts as to the possibility of finding out my life's true purpose so easily, but I wanted to give it a try. I thought that in my case, the exercise would take rather much time, and when I started writing, I thought that maybe I shoud quit after 1 hour, but I was unable to make up my mind about that. It so happened that I found out my life's true purpose on step 40, after only a few minutes. I began by writing down a goal that is my biggest conscious desire in this moment, and kept writing new items, not caring that much of the stuff I wrote was silly. Occasionally, I repeated something I had written before, and a few times I just wrote "I don't know". But I kept writing line after line. On step 30-something, my ideas turned to my childhood. On step #38, I wrote: "To get back the dear toys of my childhood." (This is the translation into English.) Suddenly, I felt my eyes filling with tears. I thought: am I crying yet? No, this is propably one of those "mini-surges of emotion" Mr. Pavlina had mentioned. Besides, that "purpose" was obviously absurd. So I decided to write on. I wrote something different as item #39. On step #40, I couldn't think of anything better than repeating item #38 word by word. And then I found my self undoubtedly crying. I kept crying whenever I read those words or repeated them in my mind, and I'm still crying as I'm writing this. I should explain what that phrase means. When I was 9 years old, my parents and I moved from a little township to a big city. Shortly before we moved, my parents threw away many of my toys without telling me. They obviously thought that I was big enough not to care about all that stuff, but it did hurt to see them in the dumpster like that. It's not like I was left without toys or something, but today it somehow seemed to me that I had lost pretty much all of them as we moved to the city. Anyway, the supposed true purpose of my life that was revealed to me so dramatically today can impossibly be my true purpose. Firstly, it's physically impossible to get those toys back after almost 30 years – they have certainly dissolved to elements by now. Secondly, they don't really matter that much to me anymore. Thirdly, even if they hadn't and if they did, a quest to find and get back the toys thrown away 30 years ago would be utterly stupid and pointless. But that's what Mr. Pavlina's exercise spat out as my life's true purpose. I'm not asking you to tell me what to do. I didn't write this in order to get any advice. I just wanted to shake Mr. Pavlina's confidence in this execise a little bit. :-) I don't mind if you find this funny. I bursted out laughing when I read Mr. Pavlina's result, so you're allowed to laugh at my "true purpose" too.