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!
