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Do you know the purpose of your life?

Vastness

Vastness

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I've recently become interested in the idea of a life purpose, because essentially I don't think it's something I've ever really had, and I think that as a consequence I have a lot of uncertainty with the direction I want my life to take and a lot of self doubt about who I am. This has definitely bothered me less in the past than it does now, but I think that it is either a consequence of or the cause of lifelong issues with self esteem and that sort of thing.

Anyway firstly I'm approaching this from a rational perspective, I don't believe that necessarily there is any objectively true purpose for either individual humans or humanity as a whole, but nonetheless I think it probably, possibly evidentially, is a useful philosophical concept for individual humans to find direction and meaning in their lives... although perhaps it is more useful to (or more needed for) some humans than others.

So, to summarise, I have a few questions...

  • Do you know, or have you decided, what your life purpose is?
  • If yes, when and how did you decide this, and did it make a difference to how you lived your life?
  • If no, is this something that bothers you, and why?
 
Aprophenea said:
The purpose of life is be being happy. Since happiness a chemical process in human brain, the purpose of life is doing drugs. Especially opiates. Because nothing in this world can make you happier than that :D

But you also have to like not be a homeless and have some kind of income and shit like that. Otherwise it's gonna suck anyway. So doing drugs while not "ruining" your life is probably it :D
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Haha, I do very much like drugs, although opiates are not really my thing, and I have tried, at times, to gear my life basically towards this ideal of doing drugs a lot without taking it to excess. However I have found more and more that this does not feel like enough.


Cherubs said:
The meek will inherit the earth and they will find an abundance of peace!

Psalms 37:11
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Thank you for taking the time to respond, but I am going to have to ask you to please clarify your interpretation of this piece of Christian scripture, and how exactly it pertains to my question, and how you've chosen to live your own life. Remember that I am approaching this question from essentially an atheistic position, and thus this quote really means nothing to me in a vacuum. Are you saying the purpose of your life is to remain meek, so that you might inherit the Earth? If so, how exactly does this affect your decisions from day to day?
 
^^^ Yahweh, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, hasn't abandoned his original purpose for the earth- to have all obedient mankind live forever upon it, in peace. Anything apart from this is a complete "fallacy". Remember, the Goldilocks zone is't a myth, nor the earth tilting on its axis at 23.5 degrees, just an accident. People, wake up!!

As for your Atheism, . . .
 
Nope. That is the journey, in a spiritual sense.

IMO of course
 
If I were to boil down everything I want out of life into a singular purpose, I'd say it would be to share the things that make me happy with other people. I feel strongly compelled to utilize my energy to give back to society what I am so grateful it gave to me. Since I'm particularly passionate about music, drugs, and spirituality, I'd like to have a career related to one or more of these things someday.

Meanwhile I'll just keep griping about my pointless, menial job.
 
I've struggled earlier in life to feel that I had a purpose, but now, at 34 (and earlier than this too), I have realized that my purpose in life is to spread positivity and understanding to people, and be there for people to lean on and help them back up. I do this through sharing my experiences, playing music, art, and relationships. I arrived at this through it becoming evident that it has always been what I try to do, even as a child. Psychedelics helped me to get in touch with it more. Nothing brings me greater joy, and it is good for others too. It's something worth striving for and I have always done it anyway, so it makes me feel good about what I'm spending my energy on, and I get better and better at it. Basically, it just clicked and made sense after a lot of life experiences and some particularly good sessions of thought, psychedelic or otherwise, where I realized things about why I felt certain ways and when. It makes a difference in how I live my life because although I always would have served this role in my relationships regardless, now I consciously put energy into it in multiple areas, and it feed my inspiration to produce things of value. Rather than feeling aimless and dissatisfied, with isolated periods of time where I felt good without necessarily understanding why fully, now I purposely live my life as fully as I can directed towards this mission.
 
It depends. What is life? I tend towards considering it a very convincing illusion. Is the key realising the illusory nature of life and self and maybe, just maybe working to reduce the suffering of other life-forms?
 
I've determined that the purpose of life is to derive as much joy and inspiration from it as possible, engage with it, form relationships, make the world better for yourself and the people around you. If you do that, you're doing a good thing and it reflects back on you. Except for sometimes when shit isn't fair. And then you remember, it's a crazy, random existence. But damn it, sometimes it's amazing. <3 In fact, if you think about it, all of it is completely amazing. We're made of tiny units that are 99% empty space, a bunch of atoms interacting with each other. Floating in the middle of an infinite sea of stars and planets. We're dust, dust on the dust, dust on the dust on the dust. Which makes it even more amazing that we can even derive any sort of meaning for ourselves, or experience something and think about what we experienced, and learn. And we get to love, which is the best feeling there is.
 
swilow said:
Being alive is honestly the strangest experience I've ever had :)
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=D<3=D

I have made purpose out of different aspects of my life; by made, I mean assigned. My mothering was purposeful. My life as an artist was purposeful. Developing my own morality is purposeful. But overall, my life has no meaning outside of what I choose to make it mean. Basically we all contribute the threads of our lives to the fabric of time and place--we do this whether we do it consciously or unconsciously--might as well try to be aware of what you are contributing to this behemoth collective growing cancer of a species. After my son's death nothing remained except a desire to be more compassionate while here. Here is so many places and compassion, it turns out, is way harder than even an by-nature empath like me expected it to be.
 
I can relate herby, I've got alot of bad things in my past, back from when i felt there was no purpose, but in time I learned that the most satisfying thing in life, is helping your fellow man. It's also the most difficult, which is why so many don't do it. Maybe it's our empathetic nature, that pushes us towards that goal.
 
My purpose in life was to determine if evil could be cured, and it can't. Some people are just evil.

I determined my purpose by trying to understand drug addicts and gangsters and thieves. I was high the whole time, but have been sober for six months and still think it's my purpose.

Now I must use appropriate media to express my aphorism to the world.
 
I used to think my purpose in life was to be a healer...

Now it seems like my only purpose is to suffer. I never in a million years imagined that I would stuck where I am, at this age.

Its one thing to know your true nature, beyond all the ego crap; but it's quite another thing to be able to craft a life based on that true nature, which in of itself activates loving connection within yourself toward everything else. If I can't live from my true will then I just don't see the point. Any other "meaning" would be a dangling carrot that has nothing to do with what's real.
 
^Its that sort of randomness that I take as suggestive of lifes inherent meaninglessness. Or its deeply random and unstructured core.

But then, you can still evolve your consciousness amidst suffering. My own battles with mental illnesses have shaped me and whilst I don't especially trust my mind or thoughts I know that I have fundamentally changed because I can feel it colouring my reality. The jury is out on whether its a good change or not.
 
[*]Do you know, or have you decided, what your life purpose is?
[*]If yes, when and how did you decide this, and did it make a difference to how you lived your life?
[*]If no, is this something that bothers you, and why?
[/LIST]
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My life purpose is to share my truths with the world and thereby make my life into a living hell.

I didn't decide, it just happened because I couldn't STFU.

It bothers me that I HAVE this purpose, If I could shut my mind off and ignore the rest of humanity all then I'd be likely a happier camper but we don't always get to choose.
 
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