Purpose
For the last 5 years, I thought I’d found my purpose - to reach my potential and impact the world positively using my unique mind.
Turns out, this was a self-deception. I didn’t really want this.
What I really wanted was self-acceptance.
“Reaching my potential”, in reality, meant feeling like the confident, wealthy, calm, intelligent version of myself I fantasised about a few years back. I would make decisions and socialise for the main purpose of convincing myself I was that guy. I’d judge people internally in a way that implied I was smarter than them. I’d present myself in a way that made people see me as that idealised guy - all to self-affirm in myself that I was him. Why? Because once I became this “highest potential” version of myself, I’d finally be worthy. I could finally love and accept myself. Others would finally love and accept me.
During most of high school, I felt that the real version of me was unacceptable to people. I perceived that without a “mask” on, people thought I was boring, awkward, weird and stupid. It’s hard to remember if this lack of acceptance happened or not, because I would frequently put on acts to turn my awkwardness into something for others to laugh at.
But here we are today, having spent the last 5 years believing I was being authentic, because I chose the idealised version of myself and so I saw it as authentically me in the future, yet it turns out I was being a fake boi. I’ve actually lost love and acceptance or disconnected from it, via the following:
Stopped speaking to a couple close friends from end of high school
Left family behind to move to Melbourne, then temporarily to Canada
Left behind a woman whom I was ready to love and who is the only person I’ve met whom I’d be happy to have children with
Stopped having sex, deeming abstinence as noble, at least until I found a new deep romantic connection
Stopped finding deep romantic or friendly connections. Zero additional ones since I began committing to this idealised-version-of-Riley pursuit.
So if I accepted myself as a flawed man from the beginning, I may have stayed with the woman I was ready to love and therefore received her love and acceptance. I could’ve had self-love and love from another, yet now I have neither.
Be careful what you pursue as your “purpose” - you might be completely lying to yourself but believe you’re being honest.
Years go by and you wonder why you still aren’t happy.
Alas,
R