What's the point?
The “What’s the point” wave washes over me more than I care to admit.
What’s the point of working hard?
Having a side-hustle?
Writing a book?
Launching classes and posting tutorials?
Sometimes, when it’s bad, it’s even What’s the point of having and wanting nice things? Going to work every day? Squirreling money away into savings?
Lately, people have been telling me I’m a ray of sunshine. A force of positivity. This is hard for me to swallow, since there have been people in my life that told me I’d never be happy. Ouch.
I believe a lot of my perpetual unhappiness comes from ambition. So it isn’t true unhappiness, it’s a matter of feeling unsettled.
There’s a podcast waiting in my inbox titled Why I work hard. I haven’t listened to it yet but I intend on listening to it right after I write this. But it got me thinking about why I do what I do.
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Here’s the point. Even though side-hustling can seem futile, it simply stems from the core of unrest.
“This can’t be everything there is to life.”
The more interviews of successful people I read and watch, the more I hear this phrase. It’s a trigger. It’s the spark. It’s not only a desire to explode out of the common rat race; it’s the need to leave a bigger mark. A legacy. Or at least a dent.
It’s the desire to want to help people. To inspire them. To be more than just your car, your job, your apartment, your trips to the grocery store, your umpteenth happy hour.
In the past, it was very rare for me to be able to pull myself out of the What’s the point victim mentality. I almost reveled in my own self-prescribed misery. Now, whether it’s age, experience, or glimmers of hope, I’m at a place in my life where things seem clear.
I listened to that podcast. Sean McCabe explains why he works so hard:
I'm doing it because I made a commitment. Because this is what I do. That's the only difference between people who do something and people who don't do something. The people who do something just do it. They just do it. The difference between someone who's written a book and you is they wrote a book. They sat down ad wrote a book. Because that's what they do.
I couldn't agree more. I got sick of saying "one day I'll make a font" or "one day I'll write a book." The desire only got me so far.
So the point is to do more. To help more. To write more. To create more. To help people feel more connected. To inspire others to be creative. To spread happiness through mindfulness.
That’s the point.
Cover photo by J. Kelly Brito
