Another great Substack post from Curt Burmeyer. I highly recommend reading the full article and trying out the exercise he shares at the end!
Article Excerpt:
I’m not asking you to adopt a religion or abandon your skepticism. I’m asking you to consider that having faith in a direction — faith in a future self you can’t yet prove exists, faith that the work you’re doing now connects to something that will matter — isn’t mysticism. It’s the operating system underneath every meaningful human life.
Article Summary:
Curt Buermeyer posits that most people avoid discussing life’s fundamental questions—purpose, meaning, existence—because these conversations feel uncomfortable and potentially contentious. Unlike topics with clear answers or scoreboards, existential questions seem “soft and squishy” yet genuinely difficult, so people redirect to safer subjects.
But this avoidance has significant consequences: without confronting these questions, your goals feel “slightly borrowed,” like executing someone else’s vision. High-achieving people often excel at measurable metrics—career advancement, performance goals, net worth—while leaving deeper questions perpetually unanswered.
Curt’s call to action is simple: stop postponing the question “What do I actually want my life to mean?” You don’t need complete answers, but avoiding it means moving in directions you didn’t consciously choose. Meaningful, energizing goals only emerge when rooted in honest self-understanding about who you are and why you’re here.