What Are You Doing and Why Are You Doing It?
Not an easy question to answer.
Everyone faces expectations when it comes to doing things in life. Things tend to be done in one of three categories.
- Things you’re doing for yourself.
- The things you’re doing for others.
- Things you’re doing for the world.
By and large, people tend to focus on doing for others and the world. And by the world, I mean that nameless faceless entity that encompasses world affairs, politics, environmentalism, and so on.
While the narrative in the collective consciousness tends to imply (or sometimes state outright) that you should put others (and the world as others) first, this causes a problem. The problem? When you don’t do for yourself, you disempower and deplete yourself. Which means you have very little to give for doing for others.
Frequently, what you are doing and why you are doing it becomes tied to external matters, such as people, institutions, and so on. Because this is the expectation of the collective consciousness, it’s too easy to lose sight of the importance and empowerment of doing for yourself.
Why is doing for yourself so important?
Everything is an inside job. Whatever you do always begins in you.
The only person in your head, heart, and soul is you. You alone know what’s going on inside of you. Only you know what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, the positivity or negativity of your approach, and what you do or don’t do. Ergo, only you know what you need/want/desire for you to be at your best.
Yet most of us put ourselves last. This is due to false narratives about the ideas and practice of selflessness.
I am not in any way against being selfless. Quite the contrary, selflessness is an active practice of kindness, compassion, and empathy. The problem that arises comes from working with an empty vessel.
If you desire time, energy, and funds to help anyone or anything else, you must have time, energy, and funds to start. When you haven’t got them, you can’t give them. Yet because of the false narratives telling people to put themselves last, often the giving is done from a place of emptiness.
The things you are doing for others or the world become exponentially harder to do when you’ve not filled your own vessel first. This is the reason why doing for yourself is so important.
What are you doing and why are you doing it?
Many people believe that they have a lot more limitations than they actually have. And there are, again, plenty of false narratives to reinforce this idea. Class, race, gender, identity, religion, nationality, and all sorts of other artifices put you in a box. Then, they tell you that you can only work in that box and leaving it makes you either untrustworthy, questionable, or suspect.
That’s a complete load of bullshit. Everyone is capable of growth, change, and evolution. What’s more, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, grows, changes, and evolves. Change is the only constant in the universe, and it comes whether you seek it, embrace it, hide from it, or whatever.
Putting all the focus on the things you’re doing to the outside bits – what you’re doing for others and the world – distracts, disempowers, and lessens you. How many people with good intentions are frequently lost and uncertain because they give and give? But they have no idea what they’re doing or why, save that it’s what a nameless/faceless someone or something expects?
You can’t truly give anything if you have nothing. I don’t mean literally nothing, I mean nothing in the sense of not knowing what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. This is where being actively, consciously aware and mindful enters the picture.
The nameless/faceless “they” prefer you and me to live subconsciously. Be a good worker, don’t ask too many questions, and allow rote, routine, and habit to drive you. The minute you begin questioning anything at all, you awaken conscious awareness and take control rather than cede it. This is where you start to know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
Mindfulness of purpose
Societal institutions make it super easy to live subconsciously. Rote and routine drive you with nearly no active thought. Before you know it, you sink into the habits of this. Until one day you wake up and ask, “What am I doing and why am I doing it?”
The answer you come up with will lead you where you go next. For example, if the answer is “the same thing I always do”, you can shrug your shoulders, decide to keep on keeping on, and return to that. Or, you can pause, reflect, and say, “Wait, I’d like to do something else here,” or similar. Rather than subconsciously return to the same thing you always do, you consciously choose anew.
Welcome to mindfulness of purpose. This is the choice to actively recognize and decide on what you are doing and why you’re doing it. Then, from there, you actively, consciously choose what you’re doing for you. This empowers you and provides more than adequate fuel to do for others and the world.
Now, please allow me to address the elephant in the room.
What you are doing and why you’re doing it for yourself isn’t selfish
Part of the false narrative in society today – which, for the record, comes from a place of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency – is that doing for yourself is selfish.
Putting yourself first, “they” claim, is selfish. That’s not true. Why? Because the definition of selfishness is far narrower.
True selfishness involves malice of forethought and taking more than your fair share, knowing that it will cause hurt or harm to another. Every single company owner who makes millions and billions while their employees barely earn a living wage is selfish. That “friend” who takes 3 cookies when there are only enough for everyone to have 1 cookie – and everyone would like to have a cookie – is selfish.
Ending a toxic relationship, even knowing you’ll be blasted for hurting the other party, is NOT selfish. Neither is recognizing and choosing what you’re doing and why you’re doing it for yourself.
Doing for yourself in and of itself isn’t selfish. Your car will go nowhere on an empty tank of gas. Likewise, you go nowhere on empty.
Knowing what you’re doing and why you’re doing it – for yourself – is active conscious awareness. That empowers you. When you’re empowered, you’re energized. That opens you to being more capable of doing for others and the world.
Life is meant to be experienced. When you can answer “what are you doing and why are you doing it?” about your life, you’re taking control and stepping on the path to choose and decide from a place of abundance, potential, and possibilities.
So – What are you doing and why are you doing it?
This is the seventh-hundred-fourth (704) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to repost and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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