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No matter how rich, famous, or successful a person may be, it’s hard to avoid getting sucked into the void of a monotonous life.

After all, whatever changes we make, whatever novelties we acquire, whatever lifestyle changes we establish, soon enough we will get used to them and life may become stale and boring once again.

So how can we overcome or override this?

To answer this question, it’s worthwhile considering three features of life: stability, novelty, and mission.

Stability

For many people, stability is cherished. People want to feel the security of owning their own home, having a permanent job, having enough money in the bank to not have to worry about paying for the necessities of life. That’s a natural inclination. This might be what urged our hunter-gatherer ancestors to start planting crops and settle in one place. They may have wanted more certainty.

This sense of stability is the life of the farmer and civil servant. They do the same thing day in and day out, but they know what to expect each day. Of course, unlike the civil servant, the farmer has the anxiety of whether the rains will provide for the harvest.

Some people even want stability to a higher degree. They want to eat the same food every day, sit in the same seat in the lunch room, or meet friends the same day every week. If something happens that changes things up, this can be unsettling for this type of person.

Then there are others who find this predictability stifling. They feel suffocated and restricted with this type of monotony. They seek adventure and novelty.

Novelty

For many other people, novelty is the spice of life. Doing the same thing every day is seen as boring and pointless. It feels so old and outdated. There needs to be something new: a new job, new furniture, moving to a different city, trying a different restaurant each week.

This can also be the life of a freelancer, who doesn’t know exactly where their next job will come from. They have to be comfortable with uncertainty but can revel in the adventure of it.

This drive might also urge this person to travel, to leave their life of stability and constantly move from place to place, not putting roots down anywhere but just seeking ever-new adventures.

But this urge for novelty might also be self-destructive. It might make a person too impatient to stick things out when they get tough or burn bridges when they feel too trodden.

This life of novelty might also become monotonous and meaningless itself. If doing something new all the time becomes the norm, then funnily these “new” things become less unique. They lose their luster. For instance, if a person travels for too long, every new site they visit can feel the same as every other one. Then the Pyramids, Taj Mahal, Sistine’s Chapel, or Great Wall won’t feel that great at all. They’ll just seem like just another touristy place to take a tokenistic photo to post on social media.

This leads us to the final approach.

Mission

Having a mission in life is to have an aim or purpose. Our mission might be to end poverty, tackle climate change, or find a cure for cancer. Each day we wake up, if we keep this mission in mind, our day will be meaningful because we know that we are making steps toward meeting our deepest motivation.

This is the life of the scientist or activist who painstakingly pursues their passion.

Another good example of this sense of mission is the Lord of the Rings story. Frodo starts out living the stable life of a hobbit in the Shire, which is the epitome of stability, with his cozy hobbit house, with a pantry stockpiled with food. But then he’s called on to join the mission of destroying the ring in the fires of Mount Doom. His life totally transforms from one of safety and predictability to one of adventure and danger. It also shifts from tranquility to extremes of terror and joy.

This epic journey shows us the profound meaning of having a mission. But what makes this mission clear to Frodo each day is the geographical nature of this mission. He needs to move from A to B in order to fulfill this mission. For many of us, we do not have the clarity that a physical journey provides. Many of us are outwardly living the lives of Hobbits. We live in some kind of settlement, whether it be a city, town, or a house on a rural property. We get up each day and go about our daily routines. So our challenge is to imbibe our hobbit-like lives with a sense of mission.

What does this look like?

We can have a stable life, with a comfortable home, a permanent job, routines and habits, but underlying this we can have a purpose. The lucky ones among us can pursue a career that aligns with their purpose. The person who wants to devote their life to healing the sick can become a doctor. The person who wants to educate the young can become a teacher.

But for other people, their day job may not exactly align with their purpose. They may work as a waiter while they pursue their dream of being an actor or musician. Or they may have pursued their Plan B with such dedication that they work as a doctor when they just want to write novels. This is where living with a mission becomes more challenging because our job can become a distraction. While it started out as a means to fund our passions, it may have become our sole preoccupation, which can leave us feeling extremely empty. So how does such a person maintain a focus on their mission?

They need to remind themselves of this mission on a daily basis whether that be by reading their mission statement each morning or using an affirmation. They also need to be conscious of why they are working: to fund their passion. Of course, it’s great if they can find meaning in their day-job as well, but confusing their day-job with their passion-work can take them off course.

But more than this, they need to set boundaries to their day-job or even limit or reduce it. If possible, they can shift to part-time work and spend half the week pursuing their passion.

Even the person whose day job is their passion can suffer from “purpose amnesia.” They may get so caught up in the monotony of work each day that their work now seems meaningless. The doctor may lose all empathy for their patients; the teacher may lack the enthusiasm to inspire their students. These people also need to rekindle their deepest passion. And like all of us, they too need to inject life with novelties that spice things up.

So the challenge for all of us is in leading a life that integrates stability, novelty, and mission so that we lead lives that are secure, interesting, as well as meaningful.

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