Finding My Life Purpose

[JKG]

I've been thinking about my life purpose for a while now. Sometimes I think it is this, sometimes that.

I think having a life purpose is crucial for happiness. And being happy is in one way the meaning of life. So I need to find mine.

Here I will report about my current thoughts what my life purpose could be.

[Zane]

How will you discover your life purpose? I feel like I've been experimenting with a variety of life purposes since childhood. What makes you the happiest? What are your deepest passions? What is something that gets you fascinated that you can't stop talking about it? 

[JKG]

My current plan is to try different things out and firstly try to find my passion. I'll try it this way. This passion should have something to do with my life purpose. I don't know whether this is the right way to do it. If not, I will still learn from the experience.

I would buy myself the life purpose course but I have no possibility to buy it. I am 16 years old and have no credit card. I would have to ask my father to buy it for me, but he already things that I am crazy with all this meditation stuff... Maybe I'll buy the course in 13 months when I'll become 18.

 

I recently thought about that maths and science could have something to do with my life purpose. Researching and contributing to humanity...

I always have been good at maths, I love it. When I do exercises in class I get into a state of flow. I like doing maths in my free time and studying for exams. The same with physics, informatics and a little bit of chemistry.

I assume now that maths and science is part of my life purpose. So I need to become good, very good at maths and physics. My plan now is to go through our maths workbook in school. I want to be ready or almost ready with the vector chapter, when I do this in class. I guess this will be in 4 weeks.

[Guest]

On 2016-02-10 at 2:10 PM, quantum said:

I've been thinking about my life purpose for a while now.

Life purpose changes as you change in understanding of you and the world.

As you mature, your life purpose matures, because your relationship to life is better understood.

It is very useful to first find out about yourself as much as possible.

For example:

What kind of person are you?  Do you carefully look at how you think about yourself and why you think that way?

What do you believe?  Why do you believe those things? 

Never mind your opinions about all this.  Opinions are just thoughts the revolve around a centre of fixed concepts/beliefs (just like the tire of a bicycle wheel which is attached by spokes and revolves around the hub of the wheel).  So opinions are always to be looked at with great care.  They are often based on personal agenda and motives.

So find out all about yourself.  Your likes and dislikes.  Why you think you have them (not your opinions).

On 2016-02-10 at 2:10 PM, quantum said:

I think having a life purpose is crucial for happiness

How do you know that life does not already have a purpose?

Does happiness depend on you, or do you depend on happiness?

Is it even possible for happiness to depend of you (the you that you think you are now,  with all those ideas of how to get happy)?

Happiness is not found in things or objects. If that was true then everyone would be happy if they had the same object that gave one person happiness. 

For example: Suppose someone really liked a certain watch.  A watch is an object of perception.  Now picture this person wanting that watch so much that they feel that having it would make them happy.  So this person buys the watch and loves it when they hold it in their hands, when they look at it, and when they wear it on the wrist.  This object, the watch, makes them feel very, very happy. 

Now if this is true, that an object - the watch - makes one happy,  then that watch should make anyone happy.   Then happiness must be in the watch.  But we know from experience that objects do not make people happy permanently.   Some people would be much happier with a particular automobile,  others with a certain house, or a certain partner, etc.  And then we find also, that the very object that makes us very happy for a while,  can also make us very unhappy. You lose the watch, now you are very unhappy, or it breaks, or shows the time inaccurately.  Someone else buys the exact same watch and now you see it in a different light and are not that happy any more about having this watch.

In a similar way "life purpose" is an object in one's mind.  It is an object of perception, a concept, a thought.  You follow that idea - you come upon something that seems to qualify as the "life purpose" you are seeking, because you said it "is crucial for happiness".  So you follow this idea, manifest it in your life and maybe you are happy.   Because thinking about it, pursuing it, getting closer to it, was an adventure.  It was the journey to reaching the goal of a "life purpose".  It was exciting and made you feel happy.   Once you achieve that state,  you have established your "life purpose", now you somehow have to align "your life" to fit and follow that purpose.  You may be happy about it for quite a while, or only for a little while.  Then the happiness begins to fade.   Why?  

I am not making this up.  This is actually how pursuit of an object, any object, including the object of "life purpose", is NOT what happiness is about.   Your natural state is happiness.

But you are free to follow your passions.   It may be the best learning experience you could have.   If you happen to come across what is seemingly natural for you then it will be a dream come true.  But it is knowing "you" that is most important - not "getting a life purpose".

Perhaps "You" are the very purpose you seek.

joy

 

Edited February 13, 2016 by walt
typos

[JKG]

42 minutes ago, walt said:

It is very useful to first find out about yourself as much as possible.

For example:

What kind of person are you?  Do you carefully look at how you think about yourself and why you think that way?

What do you believe?  Why do you believe those things? 

Who am 'I'?

That's a good question. I didn't thought about this very much, because I intellectually know that there is no self in the enlightenment perspective. So why should I ask this?  But then why should I find my life purpose? That's contradictory from myself.

I am an introvert, personality tests say I am an INTJ, the RIASEC test (about occupational interests) says I am RIC. That means I want to do something actively, investigate into problems and organise stuff. I don't know if all of that says something about me really.

I have to investigate more time into finding more stuff out about myself...

56 minutes ago, walt said:

in a similar way "life purpose" is an object in one's mind.  It is an object of perception, a concept, a thought.  You follow that idea - you come upon something that seems to qualify as the "life purpose" you are seeking, because you said it "is crucial for happiness".  So you follow this idea, manifest it in your life and maybe you are happy.   Because thinking about it, pursuing it, getting closer to it, was an adventure.  It was the journey to reaching the goal of a "life purpose".  It was exciting and made you feel happy.   Once you achieve that state,  you have established your "life purpose", now you somehow have to align "your life" to fit and follow that purpose.  You may be happy about it for quite a while, or only for a little while.  Then the happiness begins to fade.   Why?  

I never thought about the life purpose this way. All the people there say it is necessary to fine oneself's to self-actualize. But you are right.

I just wanted to find mine because I want to use my time better. There is a bit of time left throughout my day, when I have done my school stuff, sports, and am not meditating. Then normally I would surf around the internet and watch useless YouTube videos. This time can be used more effectively.

1 hour ago, walt said:

But you are free to follow your passions.   It may be the best learning experience you could have.   If you happen to come across what is seemingly natural for you then it will be a dream come true.

Then firstly I have to find my passion. Isn't there the same problem as with finding my life purpose?

 

Thanks @walt for this long and detailed answer. It will help me a lot.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, quantum said:

Then firstly I have to find my passion. Isn't there the same problem as with finding my life purpose?

Yes, you got it! - That is what I was implying when I said if you happen to ... natural for you ...

When I say: "But you are free to follow your passions" - I am letting you understand that it is not my purpose to interfere with what you want to choose to do.   If you want to try this then try it ... it could be a great learning experience ... better than someone else telling you about it.

But if you can already see through it, you may be 'touching' a truth, and therefore do not need to do this.

It is up to you.

joy

 

[DefChef]

Finding my life purpose has been a difficult process. I'm not sure if I still know, but, what I do know is that personal development has given me ideas and a platform to seek it out. 

[Rito]

There is no such things as a unique life purpose.A person can have multiple Life purposes and yet have no definite purpose at all.I think you should be open minded and experiment a variety of things with an open-mind.

Your Life Purpose may change throughout your life.I feel that anybody can master any skill provided he puts in tremendous effort into it.And you can fall in love with any discipline provided you approach it with an open mind and remain patient.

I became an electrical engineer because I was convinced that my life purpose is maths and physics like you.I mastered it and achieved a lot of success.Then I fell in love with history.I never thought this was possible as in school I found it to be boring.But I fell in love with it while watching some interesting documentaries.I also fell in love with philosophy after watching Leos videos.See..it all depends on the perspective.

Your time here is limited and you have a unending buffet of dishes in front of you. Would you fill your stomach up with only the pie and miss out on all the other cool dishes?Or rather will you keep on sampling small helpings of each and find out yourself what is the best dish of all times.

Read what this guy has to say.

http://markmanson.net/passion

[JKG]

I'm now figuring my passion(s) out by doing that what I just want to do in my free time. At the moment I am still loving learning maths. It inspires me. I am also thinking about starting to program little games again.