Life purpose, a defense of the ego

[UDT]

Thoughts to this

So youre either happy or youre not. If you set a life purpose which achieving makes your happy, your distracting yourself from the real intrinsic question on if you’re happy or not. You’re saying “ I have to achieve XY in order to become fulfilled later”. You’re postponing the question if you are happy to a later state in which you have achieved XY. If that state than occurs it will make you happy. Until the high of achievement fades away leaving you with either 1) being in question if you are happy or 2) finding a new mode of distraction, a new goal in life which distracts you’re from the real question again. Studies have shown that “happiness” is not increasing after reaching a certain amount of spending power.

I think it helps seeing happiness as a state rather than a thing which is achievable. To the core you can chose for yourself to be happy at any moment or not. It’s a purely intrinsic decision. Saying your happy because you have some certain thing is an illusion. Then you’re happiness is based on the approval of society btw the being in conformity with societies’ perception of what makes happy (nice car, house and kids, good looking wife, good job etc.) Certainly those things can be fulfilling and are fulfilling. But do you know? You don’t. It’s merely the perception of what those things will make you feel which triggers your perception of happiness. I’m talking about perceptions here because happiness is a merely subjective feeling. It means different things for each of us. When we are talking about happiness we are in fact not talking about the same thing. It’s more a category of positive feelings we say are “happiness” so in language we agree on this to make communication easier. Sadly we do not have a more precise form of communication.

So you can either chase what in society is commonly accepted as making you happy or you can try to not let those desires distract you from the inner state of mind which is the real “happiness”. Acknowledging that happiness is within you is scary. Now there is no more delay. No more “ I will be happy later so don’t worry” If you are not happy right now, something can be changed immediately to fix it, something is wrong right now. The fix is internal not external. The fix might be to kill your ego.

[Joseph Maynor]

@UDT Life Purpose = Authentic Career Creation.  I didn’t get this for a long time either.  Most of us need to work to earn our livings.  Life Purpose is a pragmatic strategy for earning money.  If we didn’t have to work to earn money, we could all live in a cave and collect welfare, but 99.99% of us can’t do that.  If you are forced to earn money — why not do that as authentically as you can?

I don’t wanna work to earn money either, but I choose to — because I wanna be happy and not hurting in this illusion.  I wanna work doing something that fits me rather than me trying to fit into someone else’s agenda.  So, Life Purpose is not a necessity, it’s a pragmatic strategy.

You can choose to earn money in a less authentic way too, you’ll just suffer a lot more for it.  Life Purpose makes lemonade out of a batch of lemons.  You’re taking a shitty fact — needing to pay for your living — and segwaying that into maximizing good and minimizing bad.  Sure, you could live like a bum on the street too, although that’s not a wise strategy for the obvious reasons.

Edited November 25, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[ppfeiff]

I hope one day we'll look back at this age in horror that people needed to collect paper just to live in a society... The amount of human energy that is harvested by chasing money is sick. 

Money truly is the ultimate tool of control.

Why else do we have money to begin with? We live on an abundant planet.

[YaNanNallari]

Can't be bothered to read. Anyway life purpose seems like a justification against the ego, but on the other hand it might be until you learn to recognize how you create purpose and then you can start learning to control it. Then it will seem like an appealing idea to have goals and reprogram your mind into more optimal ways. You can start seeing how this happens right now.

[Nahm]

@UDT It’s simpler.... who is happy? Who is unhappy? No one. 

The Infinite beyond duality will have you crying like a baby. Bliss.     It IS Joy. Happiness requires a little self deception. Just a little. Don’t settle. The Joy IS You! It’s everything!

This is why society equates joy to God - they don’t know what they are!

 

[alyra]

I am both happy and unhappy... the only reason happiness matters to me is because it’s worth conceptualizing as differing states of emotion.... naturally I am drawn to happiness and averse to unhappiness but there are often more important factors that guide my decisions. 

 

The ego is basically the self afaik... so as long as you’ve identified and named things such as happiness and LP, you're operating ego lol. Doesn’t mean you can’t be a transcendental operator in theory. But can you do it in practice ...

[alyra]

On 11/25/2017 at 2:42 AM, UDT said:

I think it helps seeing happiness as a state rather than a thing which is achievable. To the core you can chose for yourself to be happy at any moment or not. It’s a purely intrinsic decision. Saying your happy because you have some certain thing is an illusion.

I agree that happiness as a state makes sense; I find states that you are or are not in still make sense to call achievable; perhaps it is a different meaning of achievable? idk. be careful with making these kinds of theories. if they are helpful then use them, but they are neither true nor false; only a means to an end; and we're easy to get swept up in that process of means and ends. 

 

also, just 'cause we agree or someone else disagrees - it don't change anything  if you find a method of concept to help you, then apply it. 

[UDT]

On 07/12/2017 at 10:07 PM, alyra said:

I agree that happiness as a state makes sense; I find states that you are or are not in still make sense to call achievable; perhaps it is a different meaning of achievable? idk. be careful with making these kinds of theories. if they are helpful then use them, but they are neither true nor false; only a means to an end; and we're easy to get swept up in that process of means and ends. 

 

also, just 'cause we agree or someone else disagrees - it don't change anything  if you find a method of concept to help you, then apply it. 

Thank you, wise words!