Guided Philosophical Meditation: On Crafting and Pursuing Purpose Part I

Hello, everybody. How you doing? Hope all as well. Today's episode is going to be a guided meditation. So in prior episodes, I've talked about what is philosophical meditation, what are the kind of basics of the practice we've talked about self-writing and the self-writing guide episode. So I thought it might be a good idea to have some episodes where I present some questions to all of you, some prompts, some exercises, and then a little bit of philosophy. And the form of just like really short sort of curated, curated ideas from various philosophers that might be helpful in regards to the general theme of the questions and prompts, right? So the first one we're going to examine today is on crafting and pursuing purpose. Which again also maps to or connects to one of the other, I think it's actually two or three episodes. Or maybe it's one longer one that I've recorded about this topic. So if, for example, you want to learn a little bit more about the philosophers or want to explore a little bit more about the questions, you might want to look back and see what other episodes might connect to this one. And if there's a specific question you have or you want me to elaborate on something more in regards to a question or a quote, feel free to reach out to me. I have an Instagram that I've been using. It's new. It's been pretty interesting so far. I think I'm enjoying it. It's philosophy as therapy underscore and why. So if there's a question that, you know, catches your attention, and you want me to do an episode on that one specifically, or again, a quote, feel free to reach out via that Instagram. And I'll do an episode on it to the best of my ability, right? So on that note, let's jump in. Each of these sort of guided meditation episodes will kind of have the same structure. I think we'll go questions first, and I'll probably keep keep it to around 10 questions or so. Then we'll do maybe two or three exercises or prompts, and then I'll provide a few quotes that I hope will be helpful and interesting in regards to the topic. So let's get going. Today again is on crafting and pursuing purpose. And here are the first few questions on this. So number one, what are your major purposes today? Number two, what motivates your work most frequently? This one, it will be more for the end of the day, right? How did you live your purpose today? And then maybe we could even use this for like a middle of the day, checking with yourself. How will you live your purpose for the rest of the day? So some questions, obviously, on the day, let's now get a little bit bigger for a second here, right? Who will you be next year? Describe this. Let's even say describe that if it goes well, you have good luck, and you do what you have to do. Let's describe if you have bad luck and if you don't do what you have to do, just a suggestion. Next question. What is the greatest version of your future self? What stands in the way of that presently? How do you multitask? How and when and why are you careless? And when do you work the hardest? And why? What are the things that inspire you the most? And how do you engage with them? What are the key and most important things you do every day? What do you focus on most regularly? And how do you focus on those things? Are you a perfectionist? Which we have episodes on that too, the pathology of demanding perfection. So if you answered yes to that, those episodes are a good suggestion. Hopefully. What are ways you should no longer spend your energy, time, or other resources? So those are a few questions. Here are some prompts. And with these prompts, a lot of times it'll be kind of like filling the blanks or list things just as a heads up, right? So finish the sense. I focus best at night or in the morning and even try to give a time, maybe, right? Or the times where you find yourself focusing most intensely and most frequently. And then I am most distracted at nighttime or in the morning. And then again, try to think of specific times where you kind of fill yourself losing your ability to concentrate. And I think this connects to a question I already share, but I like the idea of making this a list too, right? The three things that inspire me most are I engage with these things, buy and then fill in the blank. And I think this again kind of connects to a question about who you'd be next year, but we could use this in all different time frames, right? When I look back on this day, week, month, year, I would like to feel fill in the blank. I would like to have created fill in the blank. And then we go the opposite direction, right? I should be sure to not create. I want to be sure to not feel fill in the blank. So those are our first questions and prompts for uncrafting and pursuing purpose. And I know again, for me, I think we all might have different approaches to this. I would suggest either sitting down the pen and paper and trying to write some answers to these questions, maybe writing down some of the quotes I'm about to share so you can revisit them, reread them, meditate on them, talk about them with others, talk about them with yourself. So I may be listening to this in a situation where you could sit with a pen and a piece of paper might be a good idea, but also, and this is something I personally do a lot too, listening to this when you're going for a walk, I think is nice to right because I think walking for me. Kind of encourages some good thinking. So maybe you want to listen to it when you're going for a walk. And again, of course, it's not limited to those options, but little self writing is good. And I think a little bit of a walk. A walk and think, if you will, is kind of a good approach to this. So let me share a few quotes from philosophy that I think might be helpful. Today we're going to look at going to be looking at some Sanica Stalk philosopher. First one, we should decide what we want and abide by the decision. So I think deciding, right, decide clearly, decide in detail, decide, honestly, make sure that decision of what you want to be is something that's good, true, and just, then the abiding is really actual day to day life comes in, right? That's where the accountability. So some of the questions I think really connect to this nicely, right? Are you actually abiding by the things you say you want. Number two, when one is busy and absorbed in one's work, the very absorption of forwards, great delight. I love this quote. This is a great comment on the power of focus, right? When we learn how to concentrate and get absorbed in our work, we're going to feel more joyful. So on a daily basis, we should try to practice this. Right? And I also just think that's a great, you know, another great thing in regards to purpose, because it's saying the results aren't really where the delight, the joy and the pleasure and the happiness might be, it might be in the absorption. When you really just grappling with the new idea, it might not be the end product as much as the process again. Being busy and absorbed, right? That I think is where a lot of the joy might lie and we should focus on that more, because we might be able to control that to a large extent, right? Versus results, which are often out of our control. So I think that's really good for pursuing purpose. The vision of great achievements summons us and uplifts us. So I share this quote now, because I think it could connect nicely to the idea of what inspires you, right? So we're might be inspired by the people around us who have, who have achieved great things in the face of adversity, right? We want to remind ourselves of these things, these experiences, these memories, these relationships, among other things of, you know, of course, too, right? But the idea I like here too is the notion of vision, like what do you put in front of your eyes every day that could inspire you and we could even broaden that a little bit, right? What do you consume? What do you listen to every day? That's going to summon and lift you up, right? What great achievements do you? You know, I think great achievements, too, let's, we all have to define that for ourselves, right? And that's a beautiful aspect of this too and beautiful aspect of philosophy in general, right? But reminding ourselves of the right things, I think is important when pursuing purpose, pushes us forward. Who is everywhere is nowhere. That's a great idea to focus on if you're someone who's multitasking too much, focus on single tasking. We talked about two seconds ago, the idea of being absorbed, you're not really absorbed anything if you're multitasking. You're never really giving all of yourself to one thing. We don't want to do that and we don't want to especially train ourselves to get good at that. Right? So if you're everywhere, you're nowhere, implies learn how to focus and be where you are, truly, inhabit that moment. Epithetists and other quote, you know, tells us to care, take this moment, give your attention to this task to this person, to this situation. It's a good idea for pursuing purpose and also living in the moment. And I think that's pretty good for today. So I will likely do at least one other episode. I kind of want to keep these around 10 minutes, I think, so I'll do one episode more probably on crafting a pursuing purpose, or at least one, and I hope it's helpful. So again, think about the questions, think about the quotes, see how you can apply them, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to the Instagram I mentioned earlier, and I'll do my best to make episodes that work for whoever's listening. So thank you for your time. Talk to you soon, have a go on. [BLANK_AUDIO]