Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Purpose of my Life!



I didn't have much work to do the whole day. In fact, that is the nature of my work. But, I am currently finding it difficult to adjust to. The days seem too long and bland.  Since, this has been going on for the past few days, a sense of negativity started to creep in.

It all started accumulating while I was lying on my bed in the dark. Why is this happening? What am I doing? Am I on the right path? Is this the purpose of my life? After a while, the questions started bothering me so much that I felt that I would have a breakdown. You can say that I take my life too seriously. I won't deny.

Then I thought, if I am thinking all this, then sure as hell thousands of others have been through it as well. And like, I am doing right now, they too would have shared it on the Internet. I went on-line.

People indeed had gone through the same stuff. I read a lot, from a lot of unknown people. They were facing the same questions.. What is the purpose of life? Why does life seem so pointless? After reading it all, all the turmoil inside me was pacified. I would like to share it with you.

Human life, like all other life forms is a result of an evolutionary process designed to survive with nature. We arrived in this world to carry forward our race, period. You can call this the meaning of life, if you like. But questions like "what is the meaning of my life" are as null and void as asking "what is the purpose of that bird or that tree". The question of life's meaning comes to human mind because man has evolved to such an extent (thanks to our ancestors) that he has secured his future and his children's future (talking about the more fortunate places) and the basic instinct of survival has been taken care of. If you see all these discoveries and inventions, they initially aided in assuring prolonged lives (survival, i.e) for humans. We did it all to survive, live longer and raise our children for them to carry on the race. All this purpose is inseparably fitted into our conscience. Take the wheel or the electric bulb (being able to read for more time would eventually lead to further discoveries) or a refrigerator (fresh food keeps us from getting ill) or the atom bomb (survival of the fittest, remember?); each of these discoveries or inventions had that innate basic instinct of survival attached. This instinct has been within us all the time.

So, the purpose of our life is to carry on the life. Now you would say, why do people watch television or go partying? This is not necessary for survival. Well, man has progressed so much that after all the time he invests in making sure that he survives, he still has time! So, to save himself from the ill-effects this time could have (which we call boredom, depression, etc.); he has come up with all these pursuits. You can also take it in this way that boredom and depression can also shorten one's life, even if by a few minutes. The instinct is to live till the last second possible.

Why the suicides? Or drug-abuse? Or other self-destructing tendencies when the sole purpose is survival? Now this is the result of misunderstanding the whole scenario (take no offence). We wrongly tend to believe that we were sent down to attain something or some purpose. Or life is unfair. In fact, life doesn't take sides. All of us start from zero and the aim is, I repeat, survival. We do not need to do any less or any more than what we require for our survival. But things start getting messed up when we throw ourselves in illusions. We think that we have to BE THAT or DO THAT and we think that are a failure if we can't. We break down and get shattered if can't achieve all THAT. But the fact is that, life is not judging you by all THAT. It just wants you to survive and carry on. You are being judged only by YOU and those AROUND YOU, because all of you have created some sort of imaginary standards for yourself to determine your success and failure; or happiness and destitution. Life measures your success by your survival. We are a result of our ancestors' success. You don't have to be a millionaire or a president or a rock star to be successful in life's terms.

So wouldn't I call an Einstein or a Lincoln or a Steve Jobs or a Mother Teresa successful? Undoubtedly, I would.  Because I am "imagining" that they achieved the targets they must have set for themselves. Also, they survived and carried on. I used the word "imagining" because who knows if in their mind they still had not achieved all that they wanted. I place them in such high regard because what they accomplished in their highly distinguished lives was far more than what I have done so far. Had, these people not done all this and lived a "common" man's life; they would still be successful in "life's" terms because they SURVIVED. But they won't be successful by OUR STANDARDS because our brains have created these standards to measure success. This is the entire difference.

So, we don't come down with a purpose. The purpose in our terms is what we generally use to describe the state where we are happy and satisfied and all good things and it is SET BY US AND NOT LIFE. So never ask anyone "what is the purpose of my life?". You will never get the right answer. NEVER. You yourself have to create THAT purpose!

2 comments:

  1. Interesting take on life purpose. Not a viewpoint that I often hear so I had to comment.

    I must say that I disagree with your points about life being solely about survival or an invented purpose to give us somewhere to go or something to do. The way you describe it reminds me of watching a cat play with a ball. Once the ball stopped moving, I watched the cat look away while tapping the ball with one of its paws. It then quickly looked back at the ball as it seemed to magically start moving on its own. The cat was fooling itself in order to play. You assert that this is what the human race is doing.

    I might ask you - what is the point of survival itself? Why carry on the human race? Who or what decided that this was important? Following our instincts serves what purpose? I believe that we can have a life purpose. Moreover, I believe that we're spiritual beings having a human experience, having come here to learn specific lessons and to help in certain ways based on our talents or skills. I'm pretty sure that you won't agree with that take on life, but that has been my experience. Since a young age, I've felt that I came here to do something important. It's always been a proverbial splinter in my mind.

    Either way, whether you believe we come with a purpose or create one, many still experience much anguish about not feeling like they're on the right path. That in itself suggests that a purpose is important to connect with, however its believed to have come about. Dismissing the desire to manifest it in some way by writing it off as a fantasy can lead to depression, emptiness, anxiety, etc.

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  2. Thanks for the interesting view point Jack. And, pardon me for replying so late. I lost connect with my blog. While I agree with what you have said, I must say that the you missed out the last few lines of my post.

    What I was trying to imply was that we have are not been born with a purpose or nature hasn't set any standards for our success or failure in achieving some purpose. So, we' ll never get the answer on the outside. It is us, who have to create our own "Purpose of Life". And we all tend to do so intentionally or unintentinally. And while pursuing that purpose or goal, we tend to create some standards of success. These very standards if not met by us, become the source of anguish and dissatisfaction.

    Look at this post as an answer to a very common question "What is the purpose of my life? Why was I born?"

    Again, thanks for the comment.

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