I recently got a copy of a beautiful collection of famous letters, appropriately titled Letters of Note, which is filled with the unique insights, wisdom, and perspectives of great men and women throughout history.

If you're a regular reader of my work, you know that I have a special affinity for drawing upon wisdom from the past and applying my own lens to create something more usable for our own present and future.

Well, in today's piece, I'd like to do just that.

The wisdom comes from a letter (full transcript here) written by a 20-year-old Hunter S. Thompson to a dear friend who had sought out Thompson's advice on finding his life purpose.

Thompson would later become most well-known for his accounting of a year he spent living with the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, but at the time of the letter's writing, he was just beginning his career after being honorably discharged from the Air Force.

Here are 5 brilliant lessons on finding purpose (that we can all apply on our journey)...

Lesson 1: Avoid the Perils of Advice

"I am not a fool, but I respect your sincerity in asking my advice. I ask you though, in listening to what I say, to remember that all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it. What is truth to one may be disaster to another. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine. If I were to attempt to give you specific advice, it would be too much like the blind leading the blind."

Advice can be dangerous: Using someone else's map of reality to navigate your terrain is risky business. As Thompson wrote, "What is truth to one may be disaster to another."

When you ask for advice, people are most likely to default to specifics—telling you exactly how they achieved something. But specificity is the real problem: Your world looks very different from theirs, so you can't apply the exact same protocol or steps and achieve the same outcome.

My advice (ironic, I know): When giving or receiving advice, focus on the general, not the specific.

This is exactly how I navigate the perils of advice in my own writing: I try to provide the general principles, ideas, frameworks, and questions that you can take, mold, and leverage in your own way.

Take the general, wrestle with it, and make it specific to you.

Lesson 2: Seek Perspective-Altering Experiences

"When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective has changed. It’s not the fireman who has changed, but you. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective."

The concept of neuroplasticity says that experiences can actually change the structure and function of your brain. Your actions and reactions shape your reality.

You are a dynamic, ever-changing being—and that should be embraced, not rejected.

The most successful people realize that finding the truth is much more important than being right. In fact, they legitimately enjoy being wrong. They embrace new information and experiences as software updates to their brain.

What have you changed your mind on recently? What software updates have you had?

Seek out the perspective-altering experiences. Every single one contributes to your growth and change.

Lesson 3: Goals Should Conform to You (Not Vice Versa)

"So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES. But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors—but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal."

As I quoted recently on the Gold Medal Fallacy, "a gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it."

Here's an important reminder: You are not your goals.

Never tie your self worth to some arbitrary external achievement or timeline.

Lesson 4: Define Your Way of Life

"But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life."

This is my favorite insight from the letter: Identify how you want to live, not what you want to achieve.

So often people focus all their energy on the summits—but completely fail to recognize that 99% of life is spent on the climb.

I love to ask people the following question:

What does an average Tuesday look like in your ideal life?

• What are you doing?
• Who are you spending time with?
• What are you working on?

The question strips away any goals and focuses on the way of life.

Identify exactly how you want to live, recognize any gap between your present state and that ideal future, and then slowly take the incremental steps to bridge that gap.

Fall in love with your climb.

Lesson 5: Live by Design, Not Default

"Let’s assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course). And let’s assume that you can’t see any real purpose in any of the eight. THEN— and here is the essence of all I’ve said— you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH...I’m not trying to send you out 'on the road' in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that— no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company."

You get one shot at this. Stop playing games by default.

You have the power to choose how you live your life. That doesn't mean you will choose, but you always have the power to choose.

Find the Ninth Path. Live life by design, not default.

On a quintessentially warm, sunny day in June 2005, Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs walked to the podium at Stanford University to deliver the annual commencement address.

His words at the end of the speech have stuck with me:

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Sadly, Hunter S. Thompson passed away a few months before that speech, but based on the wisdom shared in his letter, I trust he would have agreed with the sentiment.

Live your life, unapologetically. In the end, that's all you can do.