My Purpose in Life
Image by Gerd Altmann
This is my entry to The 31 Sentence Contest Round 8 by @tristancarax. It is a contest based on creating a story with 31 sentences exactly, and each sentence has a set number of words allowed. For more information on joining the challenge see this post:
My Purpose in Life
Do you wonder about existence, why you’re here and if you have a purpose? Is seeking your purpose then your most compelling life’s quest? Am I describing you? If so, and you are sure that you have a purpose for being here, would you say that yours is an assigned purpose or a purpose that you chose?
It wouldn’t be an assigned purpose if we’re not aware of the purpose from the start. It wouldn’t make sense having an assigned purpose that’s kept from us. While there may be a delay in grasping full understanding, knowledge of an assigned purpose shouldn’t require a painstakingly difficult “search.”
Image by OpenClipart-VectorsThe suggestions I’ve brought up are harmonious with religious dogma, but does our assigned purpose extend outside the religious realm? I can’t answer that question, because I haven’t taken the time to explore and poll the opinions inside both the religious and secular communities.
What I’m writing here is basically my opinion. It’s not science.
I’ve always been a bit perplexed by the purposeful folks that I’ve encountered. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been assigned a purpose.
I’ve done lots of things, some boring, some exciting, some relaxing, and some were intense. None cried out as my purpose. None said, “Hey look at me over here, I’m here to guide you and make sure you’re on the right path to me, your purpose.”
This has caused me to seriously ponder whether some of us don’t get a purpose; or at least, not an assigned purpose.
Image by Christian Dorn
Is there something drastically wrong with me that I didn’t receive notification of a purpose that my life should be wrapped around my every waking moment? I wonder.
Could the fact that I’ve not been inspired to search for my special purpose be even more depraved than I could imagine, making me a bad person who’s unworthy of purpose? As it is, I can only come to the conclusion that I’ve been left stranded without purpose.
Well, that’s not true really, since once again, this whole subject and its many inroads into the way we process life and its wonders, comes from those who speak philosophically.
I’m not suggesting there’s something wrong with philosophy, as though it’s a subject that is unworthy to study. I’m also not suggesting philosophy is pointless. The fact that there aren’t a lot of philosopher jobs around doesn’t even matter when we’re discussing the importance many recognize in the words of the ancient philosophers.
Value. It’s there, but you may have to overlook things you weren’t aware of at the time you initially answered the call and didn’t understand the language spoken. If you do understand, then was the very purpose of the call achieved, or were just the basics ingested?
It’s up to you, really.
We can philosophize over all of life’s subjects, meanings, outcomes, etc.
It all boils down to living – for some it’s the “allowable” quality of life that isn’t quality at all – just a different philosophy.
My Purpose in Life © free-reign 2020
Highly enjoy. Your words flowed like magic. Loved the topic, purpose and the use of philosophy to seek an answer to your questions. This, to me, sounded like a real person talking when I read it outloud.
I really like this line.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! I'm up really late for me lol, but I had to get this posted tonight for my own peace of mind. :)
Great lines, indeed - one of my favorites,
Could the fact that I’ve not been inspired to search for my special purpose be even more depraved than I could imagine, making me a bad person who’s unworthy of purpose?
sounds worthy of a Dostoevsky dialogue (those argumentative Russians in Brothers K with their ten-page opinions on every subject...I applaud your brevity!)...
Thanks for your great comments! Your thoughts on this line for example; so informed and to the point. And very complimentary. I greatly appreciate your taking the time to leave such a great and encouraging response!
You're most welcome!
(And no, I'm not in competition with @owasco :) or in the @curie comment contest... btw, do they still have that?)
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An entertaining and well-written piece. Well done.
I can't say I've found any purpose in my life and imagine that's the case for a lot of people. We're born, we live, we die and very few of us do anything of significance between birth and death. Perhaps most of us are just extras in someone else's play, someone who has found or has been given a purpose.
Perhaps most of us are just extras in someone else's play-no, no, a thousand times no! Pawns! Toys or building blocks in the hands of the master manipulators... no!!!
Just when I start believing nothing matters and we have no purpose, something in my soul revolts and I'm back to shaking my puny fist of rage at the powers that be. *What powers?
Let me know if you figure out who they are. :)
Thank you! I could see it for people who are exceptionally great at doing one thing better than anyone else can do the same thing. Lots of people say, "I was born to do this," whatever it is, and then maybe they see that as their purpose, at which they are incredibly good.
But I'm with you, I'm getting a bit old at this point to be finding a purpose I'm supposed to have, so I probably am an extra, lol!
Leave it to @free-reign to get us thinking!
I have heard it said that if you do not follow your destiny, the universe will drag you kicking and screaming until you do. Have you been kicking and screaming? Perhaps you are meeting your purpose and don't know it. Is passion the same as purpose? You suggest that in this piece.
I'm the opposite of you. I had an intense passion for food, especially the sweet stuff, and spent day and night happily pursuing excellence in the field of food for decades. I made money! I made friends! I had it all!
But I am being dragged kicking and screaming now, toward what I do not know. I think despite my feeling I was living my purpose, my destiny, I was not. That is still to be found.
Everybody's wondering what and where we all come from Iris DeMent. (Not sure I spelled her name write or if she wrote the song, but she sang it and it's one of my faves)
Wow, wow, wow,
one measure of a good story is the quality (and quantity!) of comments it inspires. By this measure, you've struck a gold mine, @free-reign. Owasco, this is beyond awesome,
*** if you do not follow your destiny, the universe will drag you kicking and screaming until you do. Have you been kicking and screaming? Perhaps you are meeting your purpose and don't know it. Is passion the same as purpose?***
And the part where you thought you'd found your purpose and all was well (or seemed to be well) but you were dragged kicking and screaming to some OTHER purpose....
#wow!!!
You are right @carolkean, @owasco leaves great comments as a rule it seems, and they're much appreciated always! She revealed quite a lot on this subject in her great, thought-provoking comment!
Ha ha, I really haven't kicked or screamed at any part of my life (unless I did as an infant). I've never felt I could have approached life from a better angle or that I messed up somewhere along the way. And it is certainly possible i am meeting but not comprehending my purpose. I think passion can be our purpose, as the passionate do not back down easily from anything they feel deserves their attention.
It's very interesting that you thought you were pursuing your purpose, but then later discovering that you possibly weren't pursuing your real purpose with the food gig, and now you must search for your real purpose. I think your comment adds a lot of understanding on what this post is about.
Nice song!
I think perhaps our life's purpose changes. I had learned what it was I needed to learn, and it was time to evolve more fully. I have been blessed with significant challenges after four decades of a charmed life. Now my life is hard, very hard. Or is it? It's not what I wanted, it's not what I imagined, it's not what my friends have, but I am a kinder more patient person, and far less self motivated.
Everybody's wondering. Isn't Iris wonderful? thank you for taking the time to find this recording of her. I adore her.
I think my mindset concerning purpose - that I haven't been able to recognize one tailor-made for me - may actually represent my purpose in life, sort of like a jack-of-all-trades purpose. It must be that, if following our assigned purpose brings happiness to us.
Yes, she certainly is! I had heard the name before, but had never heard her music. You sure picked a great one as a first listen. I loved this song immediately and that doesn't happen all that often to me. Thanks for sharing !
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Well said. I guess for my peace of mind, I believe we all have a purpose. I don't think we're all going to know what that is or are meant to. I used to be consumed with the 'my place' in life. I had to stop thinking about it, it took away from my quality of life. It feeds my depression.
We have no idea who we impact and what the result of that impact is. The ripple effect is the only explanation that comes to mind. Once something touches the water it is forever changed, even though we cannot see it. It's rings spread out, we don't know how far.
A great response! I agree with you and feel that our purpose in life, if we have one, may serve as an invisible guide of some sort, helping us with decisions we make, for example, and we may not recognize that's what's going on in real time.
Maybe some of us are wired to reflect on our purpose later in life, as we come to an understanding of what our purpose is, rather than being aware of it the whole time.
Thanks for your personal insight into this topic. It's very helpful and on point!
Well written and thought out, sometimes it is taking thoughts from the head to th heart, then finding a way to live them, something you love.
Thank you @joanstewart for your kind support! I really like your explanation, and what you've written I think illustrates possibly, what I wrote in my reply to tryskele's comment above, except in this case we would know that this is our purpose, and accept being guided by it.
When I look at everyone else then I see a series with a single main plotline and they stick to it completely. Sometimes a person then does wonder what is your own story and would it not be simpler to just choose something, because you can choose. I think we have the free will to definitely choose our purpose, destiny becomes the sum of all variables you could not possibly account for. Your purpose is all you can control. Although it may feel like I have no purpose, relative to others. If I think about it my story has many smaller plots, gradually building a bigger story like a Russian doll. I can stop and drop dead or I can keep doing what I do with some purpose and maybe discover the edge of the next doll. !tip 3
It seems to me that choosing a purpose, while it could be the answer for some, may be seen as an artificial purpose by others. I think it would depend on how you come to the conclusion, "Okay, this is it - this is what I am here for - the reason I exist," if say, you're leafing through a magazine that lists the best life purposes that you can choose as your own.
Bringing destiny into the picture though, could serve to validate a chosen purpose I guess, if we're somehow able to logically link the two together in our minds.
It seems we'd have to spend a considerable amount of time convincing ourselves that our choice really, truly is our special purpose though, which is entirely possible to do, but like I suggested, to me it would still feel artificial.
Thank you for the great comment and for the tip!
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Hi. This is one of the most difficult writing exercises I've seen. Most of the time I have read @tristancarax and I am fascinated by his narrative.
This time I read you and everything is consistent in "your life purpose". You manage to incert and speak about philosophical aspects of life, however I see very long paragraphs.
I have to check @tristancarax's post to see if you comply with the dynamics of 31 sentences. A great hello and a pleasure to have read you @free-reign
I already checked. Your work is really amazing!
Thank you @marcybetancourt! A great hello to you as well, and I appreciate your wonderful comment! I would love to see you in this contest - is there a chance? I hope so, as I enjoy your writing!
I would really like to try to participate in this contest, it is a real challenge!
Contest #9 is out @marcybetancourt - stop by if you get a chance and check it out. :)
https://steemit.com/31sentencecontest/@tristancarax/the-31-sentence-contest-round-9
philosophication (if that is a real word, i made it up, maybe thats my purpose, making up words) causes damage to the human psyche. Sometimes i think purposeful peeps are kinda like a dog with a bone, they get hooked and that all they do. Now don't get me wrong if that works its works. In life we get handed responsibility, that could be a purpose.everything you do kinda has an impact on giving other people something to do (which could also defined as a purpose). like even taking the trash out you giving someone the duty to pick it up and take it too the dump, that too is a purpose.so maybe your purpose is giving some other peeps purpose. i could go on and on, but you get what im trying to say.
I think philosophication sounds like a real word, even if it isn't, so I think you've created a really good one if that's the case. :) I think when something reaches the point where it becomes a fad, I think more people that aren't really into it kind of fake their way in, pretending they are "with it."
People opening up about what they feel their purpose in life is, are either being truthful or they're constructing that part of their narrative, and sadly, may even believe their own construction.
Another reply to this post gave me something else to consider this morning - that possibly my purpose isn't confined to one purpose, but several, and that's possibly why I don't detect a purpose. It's an interesting consideration.
Thanks for reading my post and for your great comment!
Interesting take on it. And it's kinda true. Can you have one sole purpose when the world is so big. To help, to live, to love, to teach, we do it all on the daily. Life is full of purpose if we break if down.
It was my pleasure thanks for writing such a good one!
hello dear @free-reign, your post is very nice !! you have aroused a lot of comments about this issue so important for most people !! I think that the purpose each of us creates it every day in small things, the purpose is a choice and as such can change, evolve or explode;)) and every day is a challenge without us realizing it, that's why that at the end of life we return to thinking about simplicity, relationships and we consider important what initially seemed useless and obvious. congratulations on your work and the curie vote
Thank you for reading my post! I think you may be right, as just this morning while replying to another comment, the thought that I may have several purposes popped into my mind. That could explain my inability to detect a single purpose.
I've had a very happy life so far, and I'm well past mid-range, so something is definitely going right for me. :) Living the moment - that's real purpose!
you are well past mid-range means that you are over 50? I'm almost there but I still don't feel comfortable in this world !! carpe diem, who knows why it is so difficult for us humans !!
Yep, definitely over 50, but I still feel like I'm in my 30s, as I haven't succumbed to the usual aging aches and pains yet, or the standard health problems. So as long as I can hold those off, I have nothing to complain about. :) Thanks for reading!
I like how your thoughts flow and how you put them down 'on paper'. I think that today people seem to care about wrong things (it is subjective what one considers as 'wrong things' though) and try to blend in the mass, just for the sake of being 'cool'. We could use this for a purpose too. It's ok if you don't feel like having a purpose. It's ok if you live your life the way you want. I wish that there wouldn't be such a push from so many places to define everything about what people want to do and who they really are..
Thank you for sharing and have a good day!
You bring up a good point - peer pressure can certainly "force" us to accept an idea in order to fit in. It's sort of cult-like in the way people get drawn in these days. I think social media represents a massive influence that we've never had to deal with before, so that could play a major role.
Thank you for reading my post and your great comment!
nteresting your post.
It made me reflect on my life and its purpose.
I think when I stopped looking for him, it was when I felt a release.
The hardest part was that my family got used to my new lifestyle.
If I feel like eating, I sleep if I feel like it and what I can't solve I leave in the hands of a force that I call God.
I live like this for some years and so far I have never felt that this formula has failed me.
It has allowed me to live without complications and enjoy more pleasant and peaceful moments.
Congratulations on a Curie vote!
Thank you for reading my post and your wonderful comment! I think you have found the path to happiness @mariita52! Best wishes to you!