Homing in on Self-actualization

Whenever I deconverted from Christianity, I was left with a big hole in my life. I thought the whole time that my purpose was to fulfill the word of God. Without this divine duty – how does one find their purpose? I did a lot of soul searching, and I came up with this (perhaps cheesy) framework to do so. The idea is the concept of a multi-circle Venn diagram of the facets of your life. I'll go through my path on how I made my purpose to explain how it works.

Physics

The outer & all-encompassing ring is physics itself. We shouldn't be trying to self-actualize through time travel, becoming god, etc. This is the same for everyone – if not for you, please disregard this model...

Morals & Philosophy

The next inner ring is that of your morals & philosophy. This is a tough subject and obviously much more subjective than the first. I think we all have to this layer well fleshed-out before truly self-actualizing. This exercise is a supreme example of the “Know thyself” principle. The key to doing this is opening your mind completely. You must not be afraid of challenging any of your beliefs. In fact, you must put each of them to the test. Find people with very different points, debate them, learn from them, etc. Your view will and should evolve and develop with time – everyone's does.

In my worldview, I went from Christian neo-conservative to atheist libertarian – more info on the path I took in this post. I moved from fundamentalist and moral absolutist to someone who believes that all things exists in the gray areas and all things have a degree of relativity. This is due to all sides having some good points.

What You're Born Into

The previous two rings were constraints; the last two are more to find our range of real choices. Now that we know our worldview, we must find out the best way of living within it. One of the major contributors to the choice is what condition we're born into. A peasant in Afghanistan has a very different consideration set than a middle class American like myself.

In my case, I wasn't born into poverty or great wealth. I couldn't have been a young champion at yachting because we never could have afforded that. We also mustn't let this constrain us too much. Just because you're from the ghetto doesn't mean you have to stay that way. One of the best things you can do here is look for comps – comparable people. Look at what people like you have done – I'm guessing if you're reading this you have plenty of opportunity. Also, we have to look at our resources.

In my case, I was born into a middle class family who had enough money to provide me with books, computers, internet, a car, an allowance, etc. I'm sure many others aren't this lucky, and I owe them a massive debt of gratitude for where I am today. That said, there are also limitations. My parents aren't rich enough to invest a lot in my startup. I didn't have access to entrepreneurs and successful people my whole life.

What You're Born With

This is about talents and interests, while derivative on your upbringing, they're often quite different. Each of us has to do some soul searching to find out what we love and what we're good at.

For me, I've always been one to love technology, science, politics, philosophy, etc. I grew up with a “lab” in my garage or basement my whole life. I love knowing why things work, I love trying to improve things, and I love creative control of my projects.

The Target: What Remains

This part of it is the hardest. Many people will go through the exercise without being able to answer the questions adequately. I think if this doesn't work you, you need to solidify those areas above to have a better understanding of who you are. Challenge yourself, your views, your life to this point. It's okay to undergo massive change because the payoff of self-actualization is worth the struggle, and actually we should all love the struggle. Below is my case and my logic. I'm sure for each of us it's different, but maybe it could help.

I thought at first I wanted to be a scientist or engineer, but I was dead wrong. I love technology, but I hate details, these kinds of people love the little details – they have to. Engineering, at least as a profession, was out.

So where to go? I looked at comparables and read a lot biographies to see what others had done. I was inspired again by Edison who was not really an engineer but a hacker-entrepreneur. I thought about politics too. I'd love to fight the good fight. I interned at several campaigns and found out what that was about – hint: not the good fight. I wanted to see if the corporate world was good for me. I took an internship at a tech-transfer office – that barely lasted a couple months. I hated being controlled by people who had no vision and looked at me as little more than labor / number cruncher.

At this time, I eliminated most fields: all the arts (no talent); hard science (no attention span); history, sociology, psychology, etc. (lack of impact), and so on. What I found was that I needed to find what job allowed me to solve big problems, work with technology, and remain independent. The choice of career was clear: entrepreneur.

The issue here is entrepreneur to what end? Using the moral and philosophy I defined for myself, I wanted to dedicate my life to giving people the capabilities to self-actualize themselves. I wanted to remove as much coercion as possible. These two will allow us to make a lot of mistakes and eventually find what we love. I know that's how I found what I love at least.

My purpose: To work to better allow humanity to self-actualize (meta isn't it?) by using technology to enhance our capabilities and activism to remove coercion. This is my stated purpose, and it's why I founded my company and a non-profit. Ghandi said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” I try to live by that every day.

Execution

I'm still in this phase, but it's the best (and final) one to be in. You're testing your hypothesis. I feel like my hypothesis is testing quite well right now, and whether this company succeeds or goes down in flames - I know I'll keep on trying because the ride is half (most of) the fun. If your choice proves wrong, correct and try again. The journey of life allows us to try many things, make mistakes, and keep running. Don't waste your life doing what you're not passionate about. Especially if you're young, you have nothing to lose. It's probably now or never.

Comments

[kimberly jean]

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this reflection.

To be quite honest going from what seems like one career to the next (nurse > linguist > educator > ?) is scary, but still rewarding. When I feel like I'm lost or diverging off of my path I think, "What does Nick do?" (semi-serious actually!) I envy how effortlessly you seem to be following your dreams and keep your focus. Kudos :).

[Sue]

Hi Nick, I follow you up to your purpose. Can you explain what "self-actualize (meta isn't it?) by using technology to enhance our capabilities" means? Maybe explain how the technology you work with helps you achieve this or some kind of example.

LOL "WDND" :-)

[Nick Pinkston]

Thanks for the comment, Sue!

To answer your question, I should first say that I define self-actualization pretty much along the lines of that Ghandi quote - mainly that happiness is consistency amongst all aspects of life.

For me, I had to try a bunch of things to understand where my best fit was. I went from engineering technology to tech startups and from big & corporate to small & flexible. I figure most people will have to do the same thing to find where they fit - make mistakes and correct.

More to your question though: my startup is trying to help people do this by making technology more accessible to the average person. We looked at the amazing things that open source software did for the way we all live today. The barriers to entry for startups is far lower than 10 years ago due to the massive amount of open source code - there seems little stopping it. We wondered why the same thing couldn't be applied to the "real world" of physical product.

I don't want to talk too much about our goals on a public blog - but basically we think that we can cut out big corporations from a lot of production process. We can imagine a world where custom manufacturing becomes as accessible as printing. We'd like to see cost drop vastly so we all can solve our physical problems more efficiently & effectively.

It's not that I think we can self-actualize through some consumerist binge, but solving physical problems better and cheaper is always something that's going to help.

For more info on how this trend is progressing, I'd say to check out MakeZine.com.

BTW - What's WDND?

[Sue]

Thanks for further explaining that.

WDND is "what does Nick do?" from the post before my original.

[Frank]

No attention span and yet you have contemplated this thorough deconversion process.

[Seth]

Hahahaha this Frank dude is all over you!

Who are you Frank, and why is Nick's lack of religion so important to you?

This was a pretty good post tho

[dad]

From this blog - "My parents aren't rich enough to invest a lot in my startup."

I beg to differ...I think we did. lol