Discovering Your Life’s Task: A Personal Story
Recently, I read a book called Mastery, by Robert Greene, and it changed my life. The book looks at masters throughout history, from scientists like Darwin, who made profound discoveries about the world, to artists, missionaries, and even businessmen, to understand how they did what they did, and if it’s possible for us to do the same thing. By tracing the lives of these masters, Greene arrives at a repeatable pattern, which he distills in his book. Every single one of the masters he looks at, regardless of their field, achieved what they did, not by seeking fame or fortune, and not through some divine genius ability, as some movies would have us believe, but by understanding and following their life’s task.
Every single one of us has a life’s task, and it’s what we’re uniquely attuned to do. It’s the thoughts that randomly pop into our mind as we’re walking down the street. It’s what we find ourselves doing in our free time, it’s the stuff that makes our blood boil or inspires us, the burning questions that keep us up at night. The things we do, not for anything or anyone, but because we just like to do them.
We’re all born knowing exactly what this is, and gravitate towards it as kids. But as we grow up, and our natural curiosity is stifled by the modern education system, as the expectations of our families and societies start crowding in on us, we lose sight of our life’s task. We start doing things to look successful, to please others, to make money, to become famous. We start living for others and stop living for ourselves.
What separates Mozart and DaVinci from you and me is not divine talent. It’s that they spent their lives honing the skills they needed to perform their life’s task. They lived their entire lives like children, perpetually curious, voraciously learning, playing and experimenting, trying to understand something or solve a problem, only for the reason that they wanted to.
Reading this book made me question myself: what is my life’s task, and what do I need to do to achieve it? To an outsider looking in, my life looks scattered. I’ve worked as a teacher, a filmmaker, a writer, and a computer programmer. I spend all my free time reading about human dynamics. I’m curious about how people form relationships, and what forces drive their actions. I watch Vice documentaries about hidden cultures or strange practices around the world. I get indignant when I think about how little control we, as individuals, have over our lives, how so much of what we think we know and who we think we are is dictated by people and organizations who are trying to sell us things.
It was hard to connect the dots. I had to go back to my childhood to see my affinity for writing and language, my desire to learn and teach, my curiosity about human nature. It took me a while, but I ultimately figured out my life’s task, the thread that ran through all my diverse interests: I want to help people understand the world, and each other.
Knowing my life’s task gives me direction and purpose. It colours the decisions I make, the roles I take on, the things I do with my time, the people I let into my life. It serves as my north star in the face of doubt and insecurity, and allows me to work towards something greater than myself. There is no end goal or objective, no final state that signals success, just the simple pleasure of doing what I love.
Now I ask you — what is your life’s task, and what do you need to do to achieve it?
