Now thats a topic which should make you think, it sure made me. What is the purpose of my life? Do I even know what I can call a purpose? There are a series of things I would like to do, but do they qualify as the puropose of my life? I dont think so. I believe that the purpose of life should be something that should make you feel absolutely content with life once you achieve it. No more contemplation or struggling and that is hard to achieve in this day and age because our needs and wants are constantly changing.
Having said that, there are people who understand the true purpose of their life early on and work towards achieving it the rest of their lives. Some manage to do it in their lifetime and some are credited of having achieved it after their stint in this world. As for me, I am not in that category as I haven't been able to fathom the purpose of my life yet. There have been events that made me happy and for some duration after those events there was nothing else I wanted - my first job (the look on my dad's face was priceless the day I brought home my first paycheck!), my marriage, birth of my daughter etc. But as I said the satisfaction was only for some time before I started to feel that I want more from life.
That has continued till today and I am nowhere near to finding that elusive purpose or one single objective of my life. I did have 'mini' objectives at different stages of my life. When I was in school the sole purpose was to study hard & get good marks so that the future is secure. Did that help? I am not sure.
Once in college, in addition to the above there was another purpose, of keeping & maintaining the friendships I struck. I am very happy to say that I have been able to manage that even now after all these years and I do consider that as one of my achievements. Didn't some one say that friends are the best investment you make? I totally standby it.
After achieving the education that I set out to achieve, the next big thing of course was the job and again I consider myself fortunate that I got the chance to work in my chosen field for a reputed company and more importantly I thoroughly enjoyed the work and that became my purpose for that phase of my life.
Once I got married and my daughter was born, I think I can say that the only purpose I have now is to give her the kind of upbringing my parents gave me. If she turns out to be an intelligent, independent, tolerant, respective and humble person, I would consider my purpose as being achieved.
But again, is that the purpose of my life? Not really, that may be one of the things I want to achieve in my life but not the sole purpose. Just like many others I will be in search of the purpose of my life and the day I chance upon it will be the most significant day, I am sure. I only hope I realise what it is, before its too late for me to start trying to achieve it!
Having said that, there are people who understand the true purpose of their life early on and work towards achieving it the rest of their lives. Some manage to do it in their lifetime and some are credited of having achieved it after their stint in this world. As for me, I am not in that category as I haven't been able to fathom the purpose of my life yet. There have been events that made me happy and for some duration after those events there was nothing else I wanted - my first job (the look on my dad's face was priceless the day I brought home my first paycheck!), my marriage, birth of my daughter etc. But as I said the satisfaction was only for some time before I started to feel that I want more from life.
That has continued till today and I am nowhere near to finding that elusive purpose or one single objective of my life. I did have 'mini' objectives at different stages of my life. When I was in school the sole purpose was to study hard & get good marks so that the future is secure. Did that help? I am not sure.
Once in college, in addition to the above there was another purpose, of keeping & maintaining the friendships I struck. I am very happy to say that I have been able to manage that even now after all these years and I do consider that as one of my achievements. Didn't some one say that friends are the best investment you make? I totally standby it.
After achieving the education that I set out to achieve, the next big thing of course was the job and again I consider myself fortunate that I got the chance to work in my chosen field for a reputed company and more importantly I thoroughly enjoyed the work and that became my purpose for that phase of my life.
Once I got married and my daughter was born, I think I can say that the only purpose I have now is to give her the kind of upbringing my parents gave me. If she turns out to be an intelligent, independent, tolerant, respective and humble person, I would consider my purpose as being achieved.
But again, is that the purpose of my life? Not really, that may be one of the things I want to achieve in my life but not the sole purpose. Just like many others I will be in search of the purpose of my life and the day I chance upon it will be the most significant day, I am sure. I only hope I realise what it is, before its too late for me to start trying to achieve it!
2 comments:
Thought-provoking article. It brought into my mind the teachings on the 4 ashrams of life, and how you serve different purposes at different stages in life. Perhaps that's just how it's meant to be. Your purpose may not be, or perhaps even should not be just one thing. Else being gifted this grandiose beautiful life would not really justify correct?
Very true ! I had one friend of mine who knew in 11th std, what she wanted to do - and she's actually moved to that ! The one thing I have realized after 8 years in IT is I dont want to do this :) .. not that I am not good at what I do, but it does not give me any contentment. True, we have so many mini-purposes like you call it !
Deepa.
http://deepa-duraisamy.blogspot.com
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