We’ve been sold a lie:
You go to school. And then it ends.
Bullshit.
I just listened to an episode of Diary of a CEO with guest Alex Hormozi. At the end of the episode, the host asks Alex, “What is the meaning of life?”
After a brief pause, he says—with absolute certainty:
“To learn.”1
A long time ago, the big bang or whatever. And then life was just suddenly here. Now, the odds of you existing are basically zero. And yet you do. We don’t know why. We likely never will. But what we do know is that no matter where “here” is, life survives by doing one thing:
Learning to adapt to its environment. Whether that means finding food, staying warm, or figuring out a way to ask your co-worker Sam out without it becoming an HR issue. (I mean it’s probably okay because you two don’t technically work in the same department so you know what? I say go for it.)
Sometimes we adapt in ten minutes. Sometimes in ten generations. But it always starts with one question:
“This is what’s real now. So what am I going to do about it?”
And when life is at its best, that question has just one response:
“I don’t know yet. But I’m here to learn.”
Even the tiniest building blocks of life “learn.” Molecules fold and refold. Bacteria mutate under pressure, reshaping themselves to survive. Cells respond to stress by changing course.
To choose to learn means to choose to align yourself with the very natural fabric and flow of life itself.
When you do this, you’re no longer swimming upstream and wondering why you aren’t getting anywhere.
Less stuck. More inspired.
Less anxious. More connected.
I know about this because, as I type this, I feel stuck myself. Not debilitatingly so, but stuck nonetheless. But as I write this, I feel slightly less stuck. And it’s because I’m learning—how to think deeply, how to connect dots between seemingly unconnected concepts, and how to write that all down and spread the word. Sometimes it feels impossible to conjure the exact right words to articulate inner truths that I know have a profound outer impact—but in those moments that I succeed, my words are the magic spell that changes the very trajectory of my reader’s lives. Often, though, I’m stuck feeling cursed, unable to bring together the linguistic potion.
Still, I keep learning.
And even though it’s hard, by choosing to stay a student—long after school has ended—I’m aligning with the very natural fabric and flow of life itself. And by shipping my work and saying, “Hey, this potion may not fully be ready, but give it a taste and let me know what you think,” I’m stepping into a stream of the most powerful magic of all:
Choosing to solve high quality problems.
I could step into an easier stream of low quality problems, like:
How do I get them to text me back?
How do I get revenge without looking petty?2
How do I make it look like I have it all together?
If learning is the meaning of life, then choosing to step into the stream of high quality problems is how you stop simply surviving and instead, how you align with who you want to become in the finger-snap-length of time you have here.
If we stop learning, we stop living.
And then the Ever Changing Nature of the Universe™ will indifferently move past us, beyond us, and we’ll be left behind—feeling like a victim, stomping our feet and raising our hands in blame, angry the universe won’t bend spacetime around us.
The odds of you existing are basically zero. And yet you do.
So what are you going to do about it?
You may not know yet.
But you’re here to learn.
This sounded a bit self-serving at first, because Alex is a business owner and content creator who makes most of his money teaching others how to be business owners and content creators. It’s as natural for an educator to say the meaning of life is “to learn” as it would be an artist to say “to create” or a skateboarder to say “to shred, bro. To shred.” But as I sat with this, I’m as certain Alex is right as Alex is certain Alex is right. We’re all very certain.
Okay but if you know how to do this one, DM me.