[tubularhells]

This is dumb. You are not meant to be anyone. You do not become a person who you are currently not. You are you, always, and you change throughout your life. Now here, next there. There is no percentage bar to fill up. No 'ding, grats' at level 60.

[Viliam1234]

Yet somehow there is the pleasant feeling of doing what you are "meant to do" and the unpleasant feeling of wasting years of your life without doing what you are "meant to do".

Imagine a hypothetical "universal basic income" with a twist: you have to work for 8 hours a day, doing whatever you choose to do, and it doesn't have to be profitable at all. But you have to do something, because in this hypothetical universe they have lie detectors that actually work, and they connect you to one every week and ask whether you worked, and you don't get the money if you know you didn't. What would you do? -- If you have an answer for this that didn't change significantly for years, then that is what you are "meant to do".

People often don't do what they are "meant to do". One reason is that they need to pay their bills, and they don't have a sufficient safety net that would allow them to spend a few years doing something that doesn't immediately bring money. Another reason is that perhaps the work is necessary but not profitable; for example it would be nice to have people who take care of the homeless, but it's something that can hardly bring profit -- even if you reduce some negative externalities, there is no way for you to capture this value; or perhaps there is, but you only have people-care skills, not economical skills that would be necessary to create the business plan.

[tubularhells]

Your reasoning is very poor. Such thought experiments might convince an elementary school student, but that's it.

[ixacto]

Why is this dismissed as poor reasoning? The only part that I might take issue with is the 8hrs/day as this might be a bit much depending on the project.

[dmos62]

The author is asking if you've ever felt like you're meant to do something. He's just talking about being conflicted about something you want. He's not saying that you're somehow pre-alloted a goal.

[jefurii]

You could phrase it a different way: If you want to become a write, start writing. If you want to become a painter, start painting. If you want to become an entrepreneur, start making some lemonade and selling it.