The Most Dangerous Habit That Everyone Has
Drifting Away From Purpose
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
In Outwitting the Devil, Napoleon Hill illuminates a common habit that brings us suffering and destruction: drifting. When one drifts, metaphorically, the devil takes the reins of their life. Initially skeptical, I later recognized the truth in Hill’s words.
People often exacerbate their problems when they navigate life without a clear goal.
Understanding Drifters
A Drifter is someone with an uncertain life direction. They accept anything thrown their way without resistance. They possess potential yet remain indifferent to utilizing it. Drifters let life's currents guide them, an act of surrender that allows chaos to fill the void of their aimlessness. Without choosing our path, we unwittingly invite a less desirable reality.
The drifter probably has a great mind and amazing potential but is too lazy and indifferent to use it.
A drifter has many options, but none of them are their own.
Surprisingly, Hill estimates that 98% of people are drifters. My observation suggests it's closer to 99%.
Drifters are aimless, and there is nothing more dangerous than being aimless. When we don’t aim at something, we allow space for something else to be created. That something else is always chaotic and much worse than any of us would like.
Signs You Might Be Drifting
Life feels overwhelmingly negative. All the options in front of you seem lifeless and boring.
Unfair circumstances seem to dominate your existence.
Avoidance and denial become coping mechanisms.
Life is filled with negativity, and you constantly wonder how all of your suffering got there.
The feeling of stagnation prevails, with aspirations seeming out of reach.
Yet, not all adverse situations stem from drifting. External circumstances can be daunting, but our perception largely shapes our reality. By not passively accepting our fate but striving to embody our ideals, we move away from victimhood and toward creating our destiny.
Our negative and unpleasant experiences come from our judgment of our situations, not the actual situations themselves.
You can identify yourself as a drifter by examining your feelings, but you can also see it in your actions. If you notice someone else acting like a drifter, I recommend being mindful of getting trapped by their magnetic field of purposelessness.
Drifting is contagious.
The Consequences of Drifting
Remaining a drifter is similar to silently failing.
Many avoid setting specific goals, fearing the sting of failure, yet in doing so, they fail by default.
Unaware of this gradual failure, they one day ponder, “Where did it all go wrong?” Identifying and pursuing a goal, despite potential failure, at least grants us the opportunity to course-correct.
Do yourself a favor, live with clarity, and learn what failure is and what it is not. Pretending that it doesn’t exist does not mean it is not happening.
It hurts to fail, but it hurts more to hate one's existence. We will be given the worst if we do not create the best for ourselves.
We all deserve a fighting chance.
Counteracting Drifting: The Power of Purpose
To escape the drift, align life with purpose. Purpose transcends mere ambition; it's a calling that compels us to exceed our limits. Purposeful living transforms mundane tasks into meaningful pursuits, enriching life's fabric.
The best way to stop being a drifter is to live with a definitive purpose. We must aim at a goal with a purpose that inspires us to bring out the best in ourselves. Our purpose should be so much bigger than us that we cannot help but live in service of it. Purpose makes life worth living and can make the most mundane tasks exciting and pleasurable.
Being purpose-driven is the best antidote to aimlessness. With a definitive purpose, learning does not have to be a difficult task that feels like a waste of time but a way to develop the skills necessary to reach our goals. Definitive purpose helps us find reasons to be engaged in things. It makes being present so much easier, which enriches our lives.
Watching ourselves take actions that move us closer to fulfilling our goals brings us happiness and fulfillment. We feel positive emotions when we move closer to a goal. This means that to feel happy or fulfilled, we first need a clear and definite goal, and then chase it down.
Some benefits of being aligned with our true purpose:
We will always be determined to bring it about no matter how long it takes or the price that must be paid.
Once we have our purpose, we will no longer explain away our current situations. We will have the power to create the opportunities to bring about our ideal lives.
It gives us many feelings of accomplishment, and we will be happier watching ourselves move toward our purpose.
We can admit when we do not know the answers easily.
We will always be able to take responsibility for our mistakes and have the strength never to blame others.
We will have a mind of our own and inspire everyone familiar with us.
We can extend the help to others while simultaneously accepting few or no favors for ourselves.
We will never need an excuse for our shortcomings; they will appear as areas of impending improvement.
Finding Your Purpose
“The whole law of human existence consists in nothing other than a man’s always being able to bow before the immeasurably great. If people are deprived of the immeasurably great, they will not live and will die in despair. The immeasurable and infinite are as necessary for man as the small planet he inhabits.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Having a definitive purpose can seem like a tremendous benefit, but how do we know our purpose?
Finding one’s purpose might seem daunting, yet our purpose often lies hidden within our interests and passions. Our unique inclinations, often evident in childhood, hold clues to our life's mission. By allowing ourselves to get lost in our pursuits, embracing new challenges, and confronting resistance, we unearth our authentic purpose, distinguishing ourselves from the drifters.
The following are three strategies that I have used to develop a strong and authentic purpose that serves as my foundational context:
Reflecting on My Interests
I try to pay attention to the things that I’m interested in. Our interests are often unique, and their magnetic pull's origins are hard to explain. I believe that our life purpose – our mission to offset life's inherent suffering – is hidden within our unique interests. Robert Greene refers to these unique interests as inclinations in his book Mastery.
When we are young, this mysterious force is strongest, but as we get older, we tend to drown out this force with practical nonsense and delude ourselves into thinking that something else is our purpose. I try to pay attention when I lose myself in an activity or lose track of time because these are connected to my life’s purpose. I love learning. I love helping people learn. I love being creative. I love helping others be creative. I wouldn’t have known these things about myself if I had never paid attention to what I am interested in.
Letting Myself Get Lost
It may be cheesy when people say they have to “find themselves,” but I believe there’s some truth to that. Life becomes easier once we find ourselves and our purpose, and pursuing goals, especially with clarity, becomes exciting. But to find ourselves, we must first get lost. People hate relinquishing control, but I suggest you aim to lose control and pay keen attention to your thoughts. Get lost to find something new within yourself.
Letting yourself get lost could also play a double meaning. I keep riding that momentum whenever I notice losing myself in my work. Nothing is more important than doing the work we feel we are made to do; losing ourselves in our work is a sign that we are doing that.
Seek Out Resistance
Training myself in many different skills was one of the best ways to find my purpose because I could use them creatively and uniquely once I was competent in these skills. I believe that this uniquely expressed creativity is where purpose is found.
The only problem is it’s painful to learn something new.
We love to avoid pain and discomfort, but on the flip side, learning can lead to great accomplishments and fresh perspectives. Where we find resistance, we can learn something new; where we learn something new, we can create something amazing for the world.
Avoiding False Purposes
“Man would rather have the void as purpose than be void of purpose.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
With our frantic need for purpose, it is easy to align ourselves with a purpose that would cause more harm than good.
False purposes are incredibly attractive, but centering our lives around them creates more problems than they are worth. Chasing false purpose will drag you down. Not only will your goals not be accomplished, but you will have a harder time bringing these “purposes” to fruition.
Beware of false purposes — pursuits that may seem fulfilling but lead to more harm than good. Chasing after illusions like money, vanity, or power can derail us from our true path. Such pursuits are fleeting and ultimately unsatisfying, leaving us trapped in a cycle of endless seeking.
Here are a few examples of false purposes that I’ve chased and determined are not worth the trouble:
Money
Unjust Reward
Vanity and Egoism
Absolute Power Over Others
Intoxicants and Other Drugs
Immortality
Being the Hero/Heroine
Pleasure
Attention
This is not a list of things to stay away from. These are just some things that can be mistaken for our main purpose in life. All of the desirables on this list can be obtained as a byproduct of aiming at our true purpose.
The world is not short of reasons to live. It is up to us to find them.
Maintaining Purpose Amidst Life’s Turbulence
“Nothing is more creative… nor destructive… than a brilliant mind with a purpose.”
Dan Brown
Keeping aligned with your purpose requires mindfulness, a commitment to providing value, and a relentless pursuit of your goals. Recognize failures as learning opportunities, treat time as a precious commodity, and navigate life proactively rather than reactively.
In order to say no with consistency and generosity, we need to have something to say “yes” to. Maintaining purpose is best done through being commiting to something that matters to us.
The journey away from drifting towards purposeful living is marked by a continuous effort to engage deeply with our interests, confront our fears, and embrace our unique path with courage. It's a daily battle against the ease of aimlessness, but one worth fighting for. By living intentionally and purposefully, we craft a life of meaning and fulfillment, leaving the shadow of the drifter far behind.
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