The Purpose of Life
When we come across phrases like "purpose", we don't realize whether it's even real or simply used by other's to sound extremely profound . But sooner or later, the truth of it all hits us, when we look back at the days we have spent, not having achieved anything. As a child, we lack a perspective on what it means to grow old. Sure, even as a teenager, we must have reminisced our past of our years as a junior school student, but with time, we start seeing a pattern in everything. We start looking at life with a bird's eye view. And then eventually, even the happiest among us hit a wall, and ask "What are we here"?
You might say, the purpose of life is to be happy. But what exactly is it? Happiness is something we all recognize, but it’s something extremely difficult to define. Happiness, more than often is defined as an attachment to something external. Try as we may, we can’t define happiness sufficiently as it’s extremely fundamental to our existence. (Google defines happiness as “the state of being happy”.)
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It is something we all want in the end, but our lives don’t end with that. We all wake up the next morning, our counters reset, ready to search for more happiness. Happiness, when derived from such random short-lived sources, barely stays with us . We chase our salary at the end of week, get drunk, smoke, thinking that happiness hides in the strangest corners of the world, buried away from our sight, whereas it reality, it lies inside all of us. It lies in a form of self-fulfillment, something far more powerful – being useful, feeling useful. Happiness, thus, is a by-product of what adds value to our existence.
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Don't get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with binge-watching TV shows or watching films ; these are small parts of life we embrace from time to time that adds flavour to monotonous routines. But, in the end, they don’t define us. Productivity is what made our lives today possible. We all have a role to play, to leave footprints of our existence, even if in the smallest way possible.
interesting
interestingly
I think that the idea of purpose is an interesting concept. I think that in general we search for it as if it is some sort of objective quality that we can obtain. However, often we cannot find "our purpose" no matter how hard we look for it. I think that this is because "purpose" is an idea created in the mind and an objective purpose does not exist. In that way, "purpose" is subjective and will be different for each individual. I think that happiness is a good quality to associate with purpose. But do you think that we as humans need a purpose?
@leaky20 You're absolutely correct when you say "purpose is subjective", but then without any purpose, no matter what it is to you, it's difficult to measure progress. As I said earlier, the meaning of purpose need not be as profound as some motivational articles tell us. It need not be directed towards changing the entire world.
Everyone needs a purpose to live. We, all unknowingly give ourselves a purpose to fulfill. For example, providing for one's family as a father, is a purpose ingrained in most of us. But, we might not explicitly run these thoughts in our heads(As in "I am a father, and hence I must provide". It's implied for the most part.) What you mean is perhaps "higher purpose", which is not a necessity, but then it is what makes champions. Finding one's higher purpose and much less pursuing it, almost never is "all sunshines and rainbows", which is why it's easier to ignore them. Happiness is an incentive, a byproduct of fulfulling a purpose. Some of us find happiness in simplest things. For some of us, we need much more. But then again, those who chase higher purpose, don't do its solely for themselves. It can be said that fulfilling a higher purpose, is permanent and when considering the totality of every lives one might touch in their pursuit, the rewards are higher.
very well said.
Great post. You should check out my blog we discuss similar topics you might like it @manofmiracles