Origin of Why?

The Proven Purpose and Meaning of Life

Vito Grigorov

• Publisher: Prosperist Publishers
• ISBN:
  9780648331414
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Cultura popular

Can it be that you only have 5 years left to live? Studies show only 1 hour daily is free to do what you want to do, and the rest you must do: Sleep, work, eat, email. On average, only 12% of our lifetime is actually free. Sound nice? No, but what's the alternative? Have you ever asked "What's the point?" or "Why am I here?". That was the meaning of life you were trying to find.

Using the latest evidence & facts at each step, this book reveals a surprising answer. When you're finished you'll know...

- Why the answer to the meaning of life changes EVERY other question in your life.
- Why those who live the answer are HAPPIER and live some of the LONGEST lives.
- Why for centuries the answer has been ILLEGAL. (No it's not a conspiracy theory)

We exist but we rarely live as we react to what distracts and lie to hide painful facts. One of the results of this is that over 350 Million people are part of the world's largest growing disability of depression. As you read you'll discover the opposite and much more:

-How to ELIMINATE 80% of distractions and rapidly increase your free time by 33%
-How ONE action REDUCES stress quickly, letting you FULFILL the meaning of life daily
-How to BULLETPROOF yourself from unpredictable economic change and job loss.

Challenging the old Guys of philosophy, Gods of religion, frauds of Psychology, and get-rich-quick snake oil salesmen. Origin of Why: The Proven Purpose and Meaning of Life adds to the tradition of Viktor Frankl, Simon Senik, Tim Ferriss and Gary Keller in opening the way you see the world.

CHAPTER ONE
ALL QUESTIONS COME BACK TO THIS

“The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.”1

Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister, author of A Gathering Storm)

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”2

William Shakespeare (playwright of Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth and more)

Have you ever found yourself asking, “Why?” over and over again?

Maybe someone looked at you in a weird way, or an answer in a textbook was different than yours. It’s common to get stumped, to reach that dead end in our guessing where it doesn’t matter how many times we ask, “Why?”—our answer is still the same. When this happens, it may mean that the answer is not a means to an end but is an end in itself, possibly a truth.

How often do you take problems or concepts to their dead end to gain complete understanding of them? If we witness a car crash or the failure of a business, we rarely ask, “Why?” to dig deeper but we stop at the first answer that comes to mind.

He was a young psychiatrist from Vienna before he was forced to endure the horrors of Nazi concentration camps—mass graves, starvation, senseless beatings. His name was Viktor Frankl.3 All the while, a question troubled him—why did some prisoners live, while others died? Remember that most were given equal rations of food and many suffered the same horrible conditions. Seeking the answer, he gathered scraps of paper left by Nazi officers and ended up writing what would become the best-selling book, Man’s Search for Meaning. The answer Frankl found was that “those who were oriented toward the future, toward a meaning that waited to be fulfilled—these persons were more likely to survive.” Similar answers were found in studies done on concentration camp survivors in Japan and Korea. We see it also in Louis Zamperini’s survival story at sea in WWII as told by Laura Hillenbrand in Unbroken. Frankl would go on to say, “A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how’.”

What’s the first question of human existence? “What am I living for?” With no decent answer comes the opposite of life. Anxiety, suffering, depression all leading to an end result, suicide and death. Though billions of humans are different in their beliefs and backgrounds one standard is agreed on by the fact that anyone can witness it. That is, if you’re alive right now you have a reason to live that wins over the reason to die. That reason, as foggy as it may be, impacts every question you face in your life. From what foods you eat, will you have kids, where do you work, to what brand of dishwashing liquid you buy. People live life as buddhists, adrenaline junkies, wealth seekers, drug addicts and the list is endless. Whatever they and you are doing now, remember, it all began with the answer or lack of one, to the question “What am I living for?” Answers to such questions go by many names like worldviews, belief systems or ideologies. We will call the answer, a philosophy.

Throughout history, people have often turned to philosophy for advice on how to live life, as it’s the one subject that asks repetitive “Why?” questions. In the words of Errol Morris, filmmaker of A Brief History of Time, philosophy aims to know “the underlying order in the world,”4 or as Victor Cousin said, "It describes and establishes what is.”5 In doing so, it acts as the one subject from which all others spring. As Wilfred Sellars writes, “Philosophy in an important sense has no special subject-matter which stands to it as other subject matters stand to other special disciplines.” This is why we have the philosophy of science, the philosophy of politics… even the philosophy of philosophy! Sellars continues, “The aim of philosophy… is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term…It is therefore, the 'eye on the whole' which distinguishes the philosophical enterprise.”6

Philosophy for this reason gives us a unique way to come up with answers which may lead economists, historians, and even mathematicians to look at their work differently, even though their own fields limit such an exploration for these answers. Knowing this, it’s little surprise that philosophers, as a profession, lead the top 10 of the most influential people who ever lived as seen in MIT's pantheon list.

Sadly, many today see philosophy as outdated and useless. Using complex words and jargon makes it sound like it’s from an alien civilization. Religions have priests to help explain any unclear messages in their holy books, but philosophy lacks such teachers. It also doesn't help that philosophers use unrealistic thought experiments that are unlikely to ever happen in the real world to make their point. For example, “If you don’t hit and kill the mother with a baby in her pram then thirty people in the bus you’re driving will die, what do you do?” Such questions have only black and white answers, which forget other real world options, like hitting the brakes to stop or beeping the horn to warn the mother.

However, for those who think philosophy has no effect on their lives, it’s wise, even if you’re not fond of her books, to listen to what author Ayn Rand had to say, “You might claim—most people do—that you have never been influenced by philosophy. I will ask you to check that claim. Have you ever thought or said the following? 'Don't be so sure—nobody can be certain of anything.' You got that notion from 18th century philosopher David Hume and many, many others, even though you might never have heard of him. Or, 'This may be good in theory, but it doesn't work in practice.' You got that from Plato.”7 Jeff Olson, co-author of The Slight Edge, breaks it down further: “Your habits come from your daily activities compounded over time. And your activities are the result of the choices you make in the moment. Your choices come from your habits of thought, which are the product of your thinking, which comes from the view you have of the world and your place in it—your philosophy.”8

Even economics was once linked to the philosophy departments in colleges and universities the world over, being called “Political Philosophy.” As prominent economist of the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes, writes, “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”9 German poet Heinrich Heine once chillingly wrote, “Philosophical concepts nurtured in the stillness of a professor's study could destroy a civilization.”10 We've since come dangerously close to achieving this in another area of study, formerly known as “natural philosophy,” and which we now call, “science”.

As with economics, though, there is now a barrier between the subjects. As philosopher Massimo Pigliucci says, “A scientist is still separate from a philosopher as science can only explain what is, while it takes philosophy to say what should be done with what is.”11

Let’s now put philosophy to good use. When we were young, we started life in the driver’s seat with only a third of our daily tank used up by basic activities, like sleeping and eating. We then start driving, with little idea of what the destination (the meaning of life) will look like. Along the way, we have doubts about the road we’ve taken (our purpose in life), and sometimes we skid off the road to get to other roads. A car crash (life-changing event) may make us see how fragile life can be, leading us to seek another road. All the while, we burn fuel (time), causing us to stop before we get to the destination.

Now, if you’re wondering what the difference between “purpose of life” and “meaning of life” is, that’s a good question. They may seem like the same thing, but they’re not.

Meaning is the “final cause”, “main reason” or “highest good” that we live for, of which there is only one.

“Purpose,” on the other hand, as Charles H. Parkhurst writes, “is what gives your life meaning.”12 It’s our way of reaching the meaning. Purpose can and should be different for each person.

In what’s to come, some quotes will mistake these two, so be mindful of this difference.

If you hear someone say that the meaning of life, for them, is to become a banker or scientist or world record holder, they’ve fallen into this common trap. Those are all purposes, whereas meaning, to quote Jack Canfield, co-author of The Success Principle ™ is “the why behind everything you do.”13 Why be a banker? Why be a scientist? Here we can lean on our trusty “Why?” questions until we reach a dead-end answer. Let’s explore this with an imaginary lawyer:

Q: Why did you want to become a lawyer?
A: It’s something my grandfather did, and I saw he made a decent living, it got me interested.
Q: Why does a decent living matter to you?
A: I could afford to do what I want, have a large house, swimming pool, kids…
Q: Why is that so important to you?
A: Well, don’t most people want something like that?
Q: Why would most people want that?
A: Isn’t that what life is about to most people?
Q: If you’re correct, then is it the meaning of life?
A: Um, ma...

Table of contents

• Preface
• Buildings of Lost Dreams
• Introduction
• CHAPTER ONE: ALL QUESTIONS COME BACK TO THIS
• CHAPTER TWO: WHO KNOWS WHAT IS GOOD?
• CHAPTER THREE: WHY INNOVATIONS MATTER?
• CHAPTER FOUR: HOW DOES LIFE EXPECTANCY CHANGE?
• CHAPTER FIVE: THE ENTREPRENEUR – PLAYING THE GREATEST GAME ON EARTH
• CHAPTER SIX: HISTORY AND THE STRUGGLE AMONG INNOVATIONS
• CHAPTER SEVEN: THE FUTURE SPREAD OF THE MEANING OF LIFE
• CONCLUSION
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• REFERENCES