For the longest time I’ve believed I’ve found my
life purpose. A common trend I notice is once you blow up on social media, or once you make it into
the pros in music, sports, or any other type of career that pays the big bucks is when you can
truly say you found what you were meant to do in life. For me, it was like that too. Making YouTube
videos is something I generally enjoy doing, but it wasn’t until certain videos went viral
that I was like “yeah, this is definitely what I was meant to do in life”. But there’s a problem
here that I think at some point we all realize either the easy way or the hard way. The idea of
a life purpose is often associated with money, fame and success. My question is let's say you
do become mega successful. Once that success dies down, unexpectedly I might add, is it still
your life purpose? Or were you sadly mistaken? And then you start saying, “Well, what the hell? I
thought this was my life purpose, I’m supposed to be successful.” “Well, okay if this isn’t my life
purpose, then what is?” Those thoughts start to play in your head. Something that I had to realize
recently, and something that the new Pixar movie “Soul” expresses is obsessing over finding that
one life purpose can be incredibly dangerous. On an unrelated note, I think this is my new
favorite Pixar movie. Which is funny because I just made a video about Ratatouille and how that
was the best one, but not until I watched this. This movie completely surpassed my expectations,
and surprised me with the direction it took. By the way, spoiler warning, if you haven’t
seen it yet, which I highly recommend you do. As the title of the movie implies it’s all about
souls. A character who goes by the name 22 being one of them. She likes to disconnect herself from
everyone. Nobody ever believed in her, probably because of her personality. She doesn’t want to go
to Earth because she believes that Earth is dumb, but once she is accidently sent through a portal
with this dude named Joe, which we’ll get to, she ends up in his body and he ends up in a
cat’s body. Of course, this creates a huge problem. On the bright side, 22 finally gets to
experience life, even if she had to do it the hard way. She starts her little adventure disgusted to
be on Earth, not giving it a chance, but as the story progresses, she slowly becomes more and
more interested in the little things in life. Whether it be food, conversations, or even fear,
it all fascinates her, it all starts to make sense for her. Eventually, she realizes that life isn’t
as bad as she thought it would be. Joe then tells her she is only appreciating life because she
is in his body, and demands that she return his body back to him. After that, she takes off, but
they’re both eventually captured by The Universe. Long story short, 22 falls into a major state of
depression, and becomes, what the movie calls, “a lost soul”. All her insecurities, and negative
thoughts consume her to the point of no return. The biggest one being the idea that she has no
purpose. Joe resolves this issue by making a point that I’ll express by the end of the video. One part of the movie I found interesting is this concept of the flow state, or “the zone” as this
movie calls it. They call it the space between the physical and spiritual. To be in a flow state
you have to really enjoy what you are doing, but as the movie points out, there are times
when that joy can become an addiction, and thus you become disconnected from life. Very often,
that’s what happens when one is obsessed with whatever activity they consider to be their life
purpose. There are times when nothing else matters but that one activity, and while that mindset
can be beneficial at times when you really want to get something done, not being self aware about
it can cause major issues to your mental health. Another problem with the concept of a
life purpose is you’re probably going to get bored from time to time, with whatever
activity you classify as your life purpose. One scene that I found interesting is this
one where the little girl is like “screw Jazz, it sucks” and then 5 minutes later she plays her
trombone, gets into her flow state and is all like “actually, I love jazz, never mind”. My
point is that human beings are like that. Our minds change all the time, every year, every
day. You can have a passion for something and still get bored with it sometimes. There are days
when you might even want to never do it again, then a day goes by and you go right
back at it as if nothing ever happened. Now I want to talk about this dude. Joe Gardner,
my dude lives, breathes, and dreams jazz. He dedicates his entire life to that one activity. He
has a profession as a middle school band teacher, but desperately wants to perform professionally
onstage. Once he finally gets that big gig he’s dreamed of he becomes so excited to the
point where he forgets where he is walking and falls down a sewer hole to his death, and
dies, rip… except he isn’t technically dead yet, as he discovers a spiritual world. When
mentoring 22, he reviews how his life transpired. All of his painful memories are revealed to
him, so he comes to the conclusion that his whole life was a failure, and he must
return back to set the record straight. By 22 living in Joe’s body, later on in the movie, it gives him an opportunity to see how obsessed he was over jazz. There’s a scene where she talks to a barber about life and he says even though being a barber wasn’t his
original choice, he’s still a happy man and sees the beauty of it. He wasn’t born to
do what he does, it’s just something he discovered along the way. It gets Joe thinking,
“damn, maybe I should take that advice”. Then after they leave, the barber goes “oh
my gosh, it’s so nice to talk to you Joe about something other than jazz for once”. That’s
definitely a problem I can relate to. Not from the barbers perspective, but from Joe’s perspective.
Once you finally find that quote-unquote “life purpose” you become so obsessed over it to the
point where it’s all you think, dream and talk about. When you talk to your friends for example, you may not even realize that all you talk about is that one activity that you put on a pedestal. You miss all
the other satisfying memories of what life has to offer. After he gets his body back near the end
of the movie, Joe finally performs at the concert he tried so desperately hard to get into, and
discovers it wasn’t what he thought it would be. Imagine dedicating your entire life for a gig,
only to find out it was just like any other job. Slightly more exciting, yes, but not quite what
you were expecting. At that point, I think pretty much anyone would fall into an instant state
of depression. You would instantly realize that all the people you could have connected with
better, all the opportunities you passed up, all the days that you took for granted are
all long and gone. You would instantly realize that the whole life purpose search is a trap. A trap designed to destroy you both physically and mentally. Life purpose is something that I
think really needs to be redefined. When you say you want to find your life purpose, you really
gotta be specific with what you mean by that. Some might say their life purpose is being
a musician, a barber, or a clothes designer, and okay... but then what? Is everything else
you do just meaningless after that? The fact of the matter is you didn’t come into this world to do one specific thing. None of us did. Everything you do in this world... everything you experience... the highs,
the lows, the successes, the failures, the love, the negativity, that’s what living life is all
about… experience... that’s the meaning of life. Even something as simple as walking, or breathing
air are life purposes. So free your soul from that limited box. You can be anything, multiple things, and that time will come, but don’t forget to be happy to be alive.
