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Live With a Purpose
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”
Maryam Ibrahim
The combination of a successful career, a loving family and a strong social network may seem a recipe for perfect life. However, even those who can check each of these boxes might feel that something is missing. And that something is the purpose of life. According to great philosopher of the French Renaissance Michel de Montaigne, “The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.” What is our purpose of life? What do we want from life? If we want something, then are we really working for it? Whether every single day of life we spend, passes purposelessly or do we utilize it to be a step forward toward our goals? Have we ever thought that in this world we have our irreplaceable important role that cannot be substituted by anyone? These are important questions we have to ask from ourselves to know how much we are concerned about making our life worthy.
Without purpose, life is meaningless like a long, tiring journey that has no destination and no rest station. Life is, no doubt, another name of suffering and tormenting. It is full of tragedies and heart-wrenching grief. Then, why should we choose to live in such miserable conditions, for no reason? Some people ask this question from themselves and suicidal thoughts arrest many of them as they find themselves helpless in improving their status inlife. The facts that make us helpless are:
- Unawareness about ourselves and our choices
- Being less concerned with our daily undisciplined and haphazard routine
- Having no guts to be tenacious in facing hellacious asperities in following and accomplishing dreams.
Dr Jordon B. Peterson, a renowned professor of Psychology, opines: “The purpose of life as far as I can tell you from studying psychology and studying mythology for years is to find a mood of being that is so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant or even acceptable.” To find a purpose of life and then to hold onto that needs mental adjustment to the environment we live in. Unless and until we have not accepted the challenges that life poses to us, we will not be able to make our life substantial and worthwhile.
Life is actually full of twists and turns, ups and downs and dawns and dusks. The best way to live this unpredictable life worthily is to find joy in our downs, and keep feet on the ground when it’s time to rise the head up. We have to keep emotions at optimum level, not to be overwhelmed by our triumphs and drowned in our failures because these two extremes distract us from moving for something extraordinary. The latter, like a handicap, renders us immovable until we are swallowed by voracious waves of depression and desperation whereas the former fills us with superiority complex, and sets us in high rank of wrong perceptions about ourselves.
Time is constantly moving like needles of a clock, and life is changing its status every moment like rotating planets in the space. The autumn we see, once, was a blooming and beautiful spring. The old body was once a strong, young and beautiful just some years ago. The opportunities knocking at our doors were once waiting at someone else’s doorstep. Time flies by taking away the spring, youth and opportunities, leaving behind only ‘the woes’ of wasting the time and living life purposelessly like varmints.
Every single date on a calendar shows us that every day we live will never ever be repeated. Then, how can we let the time go, without timely moving forward. If we really want to move forward timely, we will have to work for it daily with best possible motivation. It must be kept in mind that our current situation is not our destination. Working slowly yet steadily ultimately turns fruitful for us. As John C. Maxwell famously said, “The secret of your success is found in your daily routine,” so, the need of the hour is to start thinking of one’s current purpose and break the shell of temporary comfort around one’s self to achieve the satisfaction in the long run.
Finding the purpose of life is more than a cliché or a dream that will never be fulfilled. It is actually a tool for a happier, healthier and better life that too few people attempt to use. A 2010 study published in Applied Psychology found that individuals with high level of eudemonic well-being, which involves a sense of purpose along with sense of control and feeling like what we do is worthwhile, tend to live longer. Moreover, a 2016 study published in the Journal of Research and Personality found that individuals who feel a sense of purpose make more money than individuals who feel that their work lacks meaning. Also one cannot name one’s purposeless, all-time enjoyment as a complete and happy life because life finds its ecstasy when it meets its purpose.
We all are unique in our own qualities and our own presence. What one person can do by using one’s own abilities, no other can ever. What changes one can bring to this world by one’s own minimum efforts can be a part of big revolutions. There is famous quote attributed to the 14th Dalai Lama “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” One should perform one’s role by standing up against the unbecoming and declining behaviour of life and create a purpose for one’s living by utilizing one’s own presence.
The following are some strategies that may help you find your purpose of life:
- Fight procrastination: Doing something we have been procrastinating. First getting it out of our way will make us feel great.
- Get active and kick out laziness: Doing something is almost always better than doing nothing. Of course, doing something would lead us towards mistakes, but mistakes are part of our learning process. We should get physically active to take steps towards accomplishing something.
- Act positive: More than just thinking positive, we have to put our thought into action. Acting positively will ultimately breed purposeful acts.
- Do something you love: Activities like gardening, reading books, writing, making videos and graphics and working with people, sharing and creating community, and so on will make you feel full of motivation to achieve your purpose.
- Start thinking of a compelling future daily: Start thinking of a well-off future will, no doubt, act as a north pole of magnet for the south pole of meaningful life. That would attract each other all of sudden.
- Know what the world needs: It is all well and good if you love making art out of lint but in order to make a purpose of life out of it, it needs to be in demand. Serving the world fills us with a sense of purpose and gives us a feeling of belongingness and being needed.
- Find what you are good at: Doing what we are good at creates a sense of flawless purposefulness. This is so hard to learn, because this ingredient includes not only our inborn talents but also the skills that we have learned in our life. We need to believe in our own abilities, skills and talents for our life purpose.
- Start listening to positive criticism: Being elastic enough to listen to positive criticism will help us in making positive changes in our behaviour that may help us not to go astray of our purpose.
- Abandon the company of negative people: Despite having strong will for finding and following purpose, if we are surrounded by people having negative behaviours towards life, we have more chances of losing the longing for our purpose.
- Be able to earn: Being able to earn money and make our livelihood on our own will boost our self-confidence. This self-confidence will feed our motivation which, in turn, will help us to keep our morale high while treading the path of a purposeful life.
The writer is an undergraduate student of medicine at Khyber Girls Medical College, Peshawar.
