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a1) we all have a clear purpose in life and must find it......... or
a2)......... we will end up achieving our purpose come what may............. to
b) ........we exist because we have sinned in our previous lives and will continue to exist till we are 'good' enough to go back to the Universal power (this being our purpose) we all came from.... to
c) .......there is no purpose in life as such; we must just learn to live every moment and take things as they come because there is very little under our control and the world is a random and dynamic place where nothing is predictable.
My mind is however inclined to believe that we all have a purpose or a mission that may be predetermined or perhaps a purpose/mission that secretly evolves with our own growth (character, ambitions dictated by the situation etc). I am not sure why every single thing that happens to us happens the way it does but I do believe in the so-called coincidences that seem to know just what we need, help us understand what is important and take us closer to what we - deep in our heart - believe we must be doing and so forth.
I think it takes a lot to NOT 'see' and 'pursue' this purpose. Though, I have no concrete ideas on what these 'bad' influences pulling us away from our actual purposes could be. (The symptoms could be lack of confidence, failure to grab and hold on to excellent opportunities etc).
Oops. I'm on the verge of forgetting what I started out to write this post for. My message - I have a strong suspicion that identifying our purpose is very easy if we just pay a little more attention. The purpose is more often than not...
a) Staring us right in our face and is as obvious as the reflection in our mirror. Almost everything we do is adding up and leading to that obvious purpose/mission.
b) Lurking just beneath the surface of our lives and all it takes may be one or more consecutive or spaced out events/incidents for it to bob up and get all our attention. Seen from another angle, all it needs is perhaps a little coincidental tap for it to emerge and show up in all its glory. In retrospect, most of the events and situations we were involved in becomes an obvious link to the newly recognized purpose.
c) Perhaps embedded slightly lower down, somewhere in the recesses of your life but it could be easily nudged out with a little bit of external help/support from the 'important' people around you (your role models, parents, teachers, friends etc. People who have the wisdom to see what's hidden within you even though it may not be visible to you)
If there are people who are convinced, during the last leg of their lives, that they seemed to have lived their lives without any clear purpose whatsoever, then maybe that was their very purpose - to simply flow along the river of life and enjoy its various currents minus a single or key destinations.
Notes: I have a couple of books that talk about identifying one's purpose in life but I'm yet to read them. Once I read them, I'll perhaps come back to this post and find out what I would 'still' agree with or disagree with. ;-)
13 comments:
I like this :)
Like this :)
Extremely glad you like it, buddy. Bow wow. :-)
The intelligible answer
unless you want to live a purposeful life...purpose in life does not matter. some people are cool with out purpose...some people cannot live without purpose...its just how one is wired.
Nimmy - If u do find it - tell me - how to !! I'm still having all the thoughts in mind which u wrote in this post !! Looking fwd to the post update/new post after u finished those books !!
Anonymous: And what's that? :-)
PoPabook: I completely agree with you. It's all about the way we are wired.
Vinod: You mean when I find my purpose? H'm. Must get down to reading those books soon. I never seem to find the time...! :-)
Yes Yes after u finish the book !!
Dear madam, I have been searching for the purpose of life. I found it when I accidentally remembered a poem by Longfellow which I learned maybe in 9th standard:
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;
(It looks as if leaving footprints on the sands of time is the purpose. It is not)
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother
Seeing, shall take heart again.
(or helping an unknown brother is the purpose. Even It is not)
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
(Yes, Labouring and waiting is the purpose of life. I know it looks minor. But it is real enough.)
very thought provoking,
excellent.
Just realized I'd not responded to this comment, SK Sir! Sorry about that. Must have somehow slipped my mind.
First of all, thanks for sharing this poem. To be honest, yes, it doesn't really sound like life's "purpose". We tend to expect life's purpose to be something grand and magical! But, in retrospect, I think this is an interesting observation because sincere, humble and 'regular' people just work hard and wait for a positive impact and worthwhile consequences. They become a cog in the wheel....! And hopefully things adds up to have served a meaningful purpose!
It is the small things in life that people appreciate and imitate. A teetotaler is always listened to when a person is sane because he is not likely to complicate matters like the drunk is most likely to do. Maybe Abraham Lincoln became a president, and what a president, because he was a simple teetotaler. Even now the number of teetotalers in America is 4 times that in Europe. Simple good habits are what matter, other things will follow. It was when Gandhi starved himself that India became independent. A hundred brilliant barristers would have failed.
Oops! I had complained about a lot of spam comments on my blog and now it looks like even the valid comments are being sent to my SPAM folder! :-( Just discovered some comments and recovered them from the SPAM folder! Sorry about that! :-(
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