How to find "the meaning of life" (exercise)

A simple but effective trick to find your personal and unique meaning in life.

The meaning of life. Great beautiful promise, right?

I've had so many emails from people who, almost in depression or despair, asked me, "How can I make sense of this life?"

Even apparently accomplished people who admitted that they had a good social position and that they did not have economic or emotional shortcomings but which, however, failed to make sense of their satisfactory life.

Obviously I do not have certain answers for questions like this ... because the purpose of life is not the same for everyone, I would say that it is different for each of us.

But for each of us it is important to find that meaning.

Because at the end of the fair, once we get everything we want and can imagine in life, if we do not feel we have a higher purpose, if we are not able to make our contribution in the world.

We will still feel incomplete and dissatisfied with our lives.

I want to share with you this simple exercise that I learned in a personal development course I recently followed, that I myself have used and that I think could help you find out what your purpose in life is.

Exercise:

1. For this exercise you must take a piece of white paper.

What you're going to do then fold this paper in half.

Finally what you have to do is divide the sheet into 6 parts, something like this table

2 Once you have done this work on the first side of the sheet, for each box, from top to bottom write the name of 3 people you do not like.

People you could even hate.

They could be people you know, famous people or historical figures.

3 Ok now turn the sheet and in the other 3 boxes on the second side enter the name of three people you love, admire and respect.

Again, it could be anyone.

4 Now take the side of the sheet again where you have marked the people you do not like, and for each person, in the next box marks the thing that most despises in that person.

That specific "quality" that you do not like the most in them. It could be their character or things they do. Write one for each one.

5 On the second side of the paper, where you wrote the names of the people you admire and respect. For each of these people write that one thing that absolutely most admires of that person, their strength that makes you love their person so much.

What we are doing in this exercise is to become aware of and take advantage of our brain's tendency to project qualities that we ourselves have on others.

6 Now take the first side, that of the people you do not like and fold the sheet in half so that you can only see the qualities and not their names.

The idea of this exercise is simple, these 3 things and "quality" are your things that you do not love and do not accept in yourself.

The 3 qualities of the other sheet instead, those that you admire most in others, those are your 3 greatest qualities that you have inside yourself but you have not developed them.

You did not allow them to shine.

So the 3 qualities that you hate in other people are three qualities that you hate but do not admit you have on some level, you do not accept them.

The other three, instead of which you appreciate in others, are three qualities that you want to develop in yourself.

So according to this exercise, the purpose of life is to look into the shadow of your "dark side" and understand that those are your 3 negative qualities that you need to accept and let go.

The others are your 3 positive qualities that for some reason you did not recognize as yours and therefore you did not develop them.

The purpose of your life could be to cultivate these 3 qualities so that you can feel that you are contributing to the world in order to feel yourself fulfilled.