I’m in school at 15 and my teachers ask me:
Alex, what do you want to do when you grow up?
Uhh I don’t know… maybe a computer engineer?
Ah, you’re so smart! Good choice.
But, if I’m honest I don’t know either if that’s a good choice, or the right choice…
who am I actually trying to become?
this person who thinks I’ll become an “engineer” because I heard they make a lot of money… and because people will respect me if I have that job…
okay…
…
I’m at home and my dad is making something.
Oh, it smells good!
Sometimes…
I’m at home thinking about what I want to do but then I simply think to myself…
honestly, I just love eating food… I look forward to it.
I’m in school and while I’m sitting in class I’m thinking:
Oh yes, my dad is making spaghetti bologna!
…
And so I would run home and spend my days just living for dinner at one point.
and honestly, at this point I completely forgot that maybe there was something else that I could be living for…
A few years earlier…
My mother comes home from work, I can hear her opening the door downstairs…
Oh, mom is home!
I throw my headphones on the keyboard, I’m still playing with my friends but I’ll be back soon.
I see my mom exhausted…
It’s dark outside… she left home at 04:30 am when it was dark and she’s back home now late in the evening…
I help her take off her jacket…
as her knees are swollen…
and her back hurts.
And I tell her:
Mammi! When I’m 18 I promise you will never have to work again!
I don’t know how I’ll do it but…
I need to help my mother!
…
I take a year of before starting high school…
I try to build up a YouTube gaming channel…
After struggling for a little over a year…
I start making money…
at 17, I made my first $10,000
at 19, $25,000
And eventually I had made almost $600,000.
…
My mother comes home…
Mammi, you don’t have to work…
Alex, are you serious! I’m so proud of you.
And the way she said it. And the way I felt. Her smile.
Was the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced
She hugs me.
And now, I can truly play games and just help my family…
…
So I’ve done it…
I retired my mother…
bought the house that we live in…
and can travel wherever and I can work from whenever as well.
And for many years…
it feels good.
One day I’m working again, making the same version of a video…
hundreds of videos have been posted…
slowly starting to run out of ideas…
So I have to start almost doing the same things over and over…
the channel has gone down to $10,000.
But a few months earlier, it was at $6,000 so I panicked and worked way harder.
…
How much more money should I make?
Should I try to go for $30,000?
I will need to work 8-12 hour days though…
playing the same game over and over.
I really do enjoy it, I do.
But something feels off.
I work twice as hard to earn half the amount of money that YouTube paid a few years ago.
How long can I sustain this and continue helping my mother and family?
Shouldn’t I start up another business?
…
I’m working for a couple hours… the deadline for the video is yet again done…
so I go back to bed and scroll YouTube shorts. Just waiting and procrastinating until I have to work on the next video.
I start feeling lost.
But nothing is wrong?
I have so much and I have my dream job.
My goal didn’t fail, it worked out. And that was the entire problem. I got everything that I wanted, and because of that I decided to myself that there was no other goal for me to really work on. The more money I make the longer I can keep my mother retired…
But I was only working towards a means of keeping the life I had, and I just did the bare minimum to make sure I had enough money…
I wasn’t really growing or learning anything.
I thought I was continuing to work towards the goal of keeping my mother retired.
But the goal of retiring my mother had already finished…
I’m not lost because my goal failed.
I’m lost because it worked.
After going for the one thing I never had, a relationship…
I focus everything to my girlfriend. Now, I believe I have everything I have in life.
I honestly don’t care that my channel is doing worse, I get to spend time with her!
…
we eventually break up and then I finally realize…
I have gotten absolutely everything in my life… a fit muscular body, I had a girlfriend and got to experience everything with that. I have all the money necessary, my mother will be fine.
Okay, let me actually start up something on the side, I like to teach and help people.
I will start to play the piano again after years of putting it off…
I will actually read for once, that book Think and Grow Rich my mother gave me when I was like 12…
And I will be more consistent with going to the gym…
And also… If I earn a lot more money I will get more girls… I should go to the library and read a lot more, that’s where the smart girls are.
…
I’m in the library reading Atomic Habits…
I hear footsteps…
I look up
Oh my god, could that be my next girlfriend?
Oh no, oh no.
Wait, where was I in this book?
I’m sitting as close as possible to the entrance of the library, because there all kinds of women will be able to see me reading…
I hear light, calm footsteps. Another potential soulmate?
I look up…
It’s a full grown dude.
Ah shit, let me just read…
Wait where was I again?
but after doing this for a few months…
something changed…
…
I’m sitting in the library reading again, and somebody walks by.
But oh my god, I’m learning so much about business…
psychology…
the way people work…
meaning…
I read Man’s Search for Meaning.
All the ways of purpose, how looking forward to something in the future makes us endure the present.
And I ask myself:
What am I really supposed to do with my life now?
I’m constantly thinking about the question…
like one day I will get an epiphany…
oh my god! I found the meaning of life!
And that now that I know, I will forever have the meaning of my life…
…
That never really happened…
I still don’t know what the meaning of life is.
But while I’m sitting there thinking really hard about the question.
I do realize that maybe just taking the question seriously was enough for me to start changing…
I finish work on my gaming channel yet another day… I could just go and watch YouTube shorts and movies and procrastinate until the next video…
but instead. I want to play the piano. So I sit down and decide to practice for only 45 minutes a day…
No pressure to complete anything, just having fun.
and everyday I see myself slowly progressing, learning better pieces. Understanding patterns and becoming proud of myself whenever I learn an “impossible” piece. Know I can conquer harder and harder pieces.
Then afterwards I sit down, listen to relaxing music and read for 30 minutes a day…
Oh my god! This bit of human psychology is so insane! I will write this down and synthesize so other people can understand themselves better
Then I go to the gym…
I start talking to people there… learning all about them, and training to actually enjoy the process of the gym rather than just training to “have it over with”
And I met a guy like me… dedicated, focused and we talk about the meaning of life together and how to live a good life.
…
All of the sudden I’m doing more things than…
Yet I’m not forcing myself to do any of these things, I just did them for the fun of it.
A few years ago I would play video games for 12 hours a day and not think of anything else, let alone my real life.
Now I’m playing games while working and I’m thinking:
Okay, I want to do something else…
I can barely work for 4 hours while playing games…
I want to read, play the piano and go to the gym…
go for my short walks…
talk to my mother for 15 minutes spontaneously…
I don’t do everything with a deep purpose…
Sometimes I eat dinner and think:
Damn, this dinner is soo good, my mother’s a master chef.
And I start wondering why every part of my life needs the enormous question…
Why does the piano matter to me?
Why should I read?
I used to think everything that didn’t progress my goals was useless…
If I can work… why would I take meaning in doing as useless as playing the piano? I could make more money.
Why would I need friends? I hate going for stuff, I just want to go home and work on business.
My whole meaning in life, especially as a gaming YouTuber came from how much money I could earn…
how much I could provide…
but eventually there were some things that gave me more meaning than anything I could’ve thought…
Almost a year ago, while I was still struggling to figure out what to do…
I get an email from someone who watches my gaming videos…
They tell me something along the lines of:
“Hello, I’m from Brazil… you know, I’ve been feeling really down lately and just watching your videos has helped me so much. You don’t know how much you’ve helped me go to sleep and forget life. So thank you for everything!”
Immediately I start to cry…
I never knew… that my silly little gaming videos could help someone bring so much value and peace…
I’ve gotten millions of views…
earned more money than I could ever think off…
gotten enough subscribers for YouTube to reward me with a plaque.
Yet somehow, none of that compared as much as one single person telling me:
You’ve helped me.
I realized just how separated I was from my audience…
how much I love talking to people…
want to teach and understand myself and other…
…
Now I’m making these stories…
I look back at small and seemingly ordinary things in life that should have absolute zero meaning….
why did I hide from guests so much?
Why did I care so much about what other people thought about me?
Why did I think and become the way I am in life?
Or, why did I wipe my ass with a cardboard roll because I was too embarrassed to ask for more?
And the more I try to understand myself… the more I can help others understand themselves better.
And now, I read comments like:
Wow, I did this too.
I never thought about it that way.
Thank you so much for this message.
And I think I’ve found a business that now aligns well with who I am as a person…
not just telling stories within video games…
but helping people understand themselves through stories too…
and that may or may not give me meaning for a long time.
But this gives me something to look forward to.
Everything I notice in my life becomes meaning for others.
Everything I read in my books becomes a way to help others.
Every time I think of another idea that I realize will make others understand themselves better…
So this is part of meaning in my life right now…
but I know that even this life won’t give me purpose forever.
In a few years from now, I may or may not feel like:
Okay, I feel done with the piano… instead of giving it up, let me try the violin.
I don’t like training at the gym anymore, instead of quitting let me try running.
I don’t like making videos anymore… but I still like helping people understand themselves… let me make a movie, write books or do podcasts.
Maybe there is some completely different way of helping people that I can only learn once I’ve lived long enough…
and knowing that maybe I don’t know…
doesn’t scare me anymore.
Because I already had my greatest purpose in life end… and once it was finished…
life kept on going.
So if I one day any of the things in my life start feeling meaningless or boring…
I will probably find something else.
Because the things that bring meaning to my life, will change as I keep on living…
and as long as I’m alive.
I’m going to keep on changing..
keep learning new things…
meet new people I could never imagine…
and probably enjoy things in the future I would never do today.
Because it would be strange if the answer I had to the purpose of life, at 21. Explained the purpose of my life for the rest of my life.
This is the biggest things that confused me…
I thought the meaning of life…
was one huge thing.
The reason that I’m alive. The thing I’m supposed to spend every waking hour of my life focused on.
But I think meaning is smaller than that…
some meaning like helping my mother can give me purpose for years…
something as simple as wanting to live for the the dinner can give me purpose for the next few hours…
And nothing about these things last forever…
but they make me want to really live the life I have… Now.
I still don’t know what the meaning of life is…
If somebody were to ask me:
Why are you here?
I don’t have a real answer, only something abstract…
I don’t know.
I thought meaning was something that was found.
A permanent solution to all my problems, if I could think hard enough to find it… I could finally stop worrying about that question for the rest of my life.
But life never worked that way…
I care about something and start moving towards it…
sometimes I can reach it…
and sometimes I stop moving towards it.
And then… something else pops up in life that I can start caring towards.
I haven’t found the meaning of my life.
I’ve just built a life that keeps giving me meaningful reasons to live it.