One of the important things in life is to be doing something meaningful which creates value in the society. There are two aspects to it-
- Meaningful to you – If what you do provides joy to you, you can be really happy
- Creates value in society – Humans are social beings and as such we depend on others for our own survival. Even though you are not a farmer, you need food to survive and that food is produced by him, by working hard day and night. Why should he provide you with food if you are not going to generate any value for him?
The best case scenario is an overlap of the above two where you enjoy creating value for others because you like helping fellow human beings living their life on planet earth && you are also enjoying the craftsmanship of whatever you are doing. You are like the artist who really enjoys painting, or a cook who loves making a delicious dish, or a software developer who wants to solve an interesting and useful problem.
The fundamental thing is – everyone is different and hence what is meaningful to you, might be not meaningful to someone else. To each his own. Meaningfulness is something which you need to decide for your own self, while whether or not it is adding value can be and should be judged on socially defined objective points. While it is true that you can choose those points in a manner which is different from the society, in many cases it is delusional thinking. Society is on the whole really good at valuing what is good for it or what is not.
But since what is meaningful for you is UNIQUE for you – there is need to be really mentally strong because in most cases whatever else you have done in life, you have done in groups along with your friends. For example – you go to a school in a group, to a college in a group – but when you need to take a major adult decision in life, you need to decide for yourself. There might be periods where you would be misunderstood, but you have to take that in your stride because it is part of the whole story. You would always find fellow dreamers who would join you in this journey and make it more fun, but you also need to be mentally strong and take a deserted path when its needed.
I want to end this blog post with a very relevant quote.
Invention requires a long-term willingness to be misunderstood. You do something that you genuinely believe in, that you have conviction about, but for a long period of time, well-meaning people may criticise that effort. When you receive criticism from well-meaning people, it pays to ask, ‘Are they right?’ And if they are, you need to adapt what they’re doing. If they’re not right, if you really have conviction that they’re not right, you need to have that long-term willingness to be misunderstood. It’s a key part of invention.
Jeff Bezos
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