You may feel like the idea of acting with an overarching purpose is something new or different compared to life as you presently live it, but this is an illusion. Humans are inherently purpose-driven creatures, and when we are unaware of a motivating purpose, the issue isn’t the absence of purpose, but the absence of awareness of it. Think of human purpose like a slot that must be filled at all times. If you don’t fill it intentionally and consciously, it will still be filled—it just won’t be filled with what is best, you won’t use it up to its potential, and it will likely rotate out to something else just as arbitrarily and unnoticed as it came.
When a person does not have a consciously-chosen purpose, they will typically default to baser aims that have some relationship to avoiding pain and maximizing present pleasure. These will always end in lesser long-term consequences than intentionally selecting and pursuing a valuable purpose.
All sentient beings have something more important to them than anything else. It is whatever they are presently doing. Most people never make their priorities explicit, and are constantly and subconsciously jostling what is most important. The problem isn’t that they don’t have something of highest priority—it’s that they choose what is most important by reacting to what is around them rather than proactively selecting it ahead of time.
Unintentionally choosing a purpose will not result in anything near the same success as pursuing one intentionally. One does not tend to land darts as near the bullseye when blindfolded and spinning as they do when aiming, no matter how bad they are at the game.
A person who allows their purpose to be passively-selected will never stay with a purpose long enough to make significant progress in it. They will flitter between multiple, usually-conflicting purposes one after another, leading to even more disastrous results than any single baser purpose might yield alone. The constant change in purpose makes it difficult to identify the patterns that might otherwise help the individual to identify the source of the problems they find themselves constantly plagued with, which stem from the lack of a consistent and worthwhile purpose.
While adopting a purpose seems like a big commitment, realize you are already doing it, just not intentionally or well. The difference in the life plan is intentionally choosing what the most important thing is, and keeping it consistent.
This is precisely the opportunity before you: to make intentional what you have consistently taken for granted your whole life, and in doing so, to unleash the power uniquely available to those who do.
Until now, your attention has fluttered haphazardly from one thing to the next with only the slightest coordination and intention. The best things in life carry the greatest price, and almost none are available to those who incidentally meander through life. From now on, you will know how to organize your attention toward what you want the most, unlocking the attainments that require full and deliberate intention.