What Is(are) Your Life Objective(s) ?

[Loreena]

A life objective sets the direction of your whole life

[Nahm]

Happiness. Now. 

Everything else revolves around this.

[Prabhaker]

18 minutes ago, Loreena said:

A life objective sets the direction of your whole life

!f there is some objective then life becomes businesslike, it cannot be ecstatic.

The West has been thinking in terms of purpose, but the East has been thinking in terms of purposelessness. The East says life is not a business, it is a play. And a play has no purpose really, it is nonpurposeful. Or you can say play is its own purpose, to play is enough. Life is not reaching towards some goal, life itself is the goal.It is not evolving towards some ultimate; this very moment, here and now, life is ultimate.

You love someone. Have you asked the question, “For what purpose does love exist?” The mind, a calculating mind, is bound to ask, “Why love? What is the purpose?” If you can answer then one thing is certain — that you are not in love. If you can show the purpose then love is not there, it is a business, it is a bargain. But lovers will always say there is no purpose to it. To be in love is the goal. The goal is not somewhere else; it is intrinsic, it is in the very phenomenon of love. The goal is already achieved. When you are happy have you asked, “What is the purpose of being happy?” Can there be any purpose to being happy? When you are happy you never ask because the question is absurd. Happiness is itself the goal, there is no purpose to it.

Life is like love, life is like happiness.

[Loreena]

@Nahm how do you define happiness right now ?

[Loreena]

@Prabhaker some people may not have happiness as their sole objective. However happiness could be one of their life objectives that they might be looking forward to. For example let s say a pastor's objective in life could be to spread faith, hope and God's word in this world. He may be deeply unhappy with his life or deeply dissatisfied yet he may be actively working towards the attainment of his ultimate objective(s), not for his own fulfillment but out of a sense of obligation/duty. However people can have an objective like happiness or a list of things(not like goals such as losing weight, learning guitar etc) ,something that will eventually set the direction of their whole life(all aspects included). 

another example can be : a person may only wish to focus entirely on health. So his sole objective can be - full focus on health. Now that can be neatly broken down into a set of goals like fitness, diet, losing weight, nutrition, disease management etc. But the ultimate objective is/was good health. 

[Nahm]

@Loreena That hits me as a deep question. Here's what comes to mind. Right now I'm very happy, still, I can't define it, so I'll describe How I feel right now...

Clarity, optimistic outlook, good 'mood',compassion, love, connectedness, knowing, no monkey mind, synchronized, healthy, energetic, confident....living to my potential and knowing it's capacity is expanding, excited for what I can't know is coming, accepting the ego me with love from the higher me, loving that I am unique and weird, comfort knowing there is no limit to what I can learn and experience, knowing when I leave my house today I get to see God in everyone, knowing all things of matter surrounding me no matter where I go is God, knowing my balance and trusting my judgements, knowing I will always be able to obtain more acute balance, loving the knowledge that honesty both to self and others is more powerful than shortcuts and clever thinking.

I really appreciate that you asked me that question. I am literally even happier now for having focused on it! You rock Loreena!

[Loreena]

2 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@Loreena

I really appreciate that you asked me that question. I aliterally even happier now or having focused on it! You rock Loreen

Yooohooo. You see sometimes it's not just answers, but even questions that help. I am glaaaaaad it helped u buddy

[Prabhaker]

8 minutes ago, Loreena said:

He may be deeply unhappy with his life or deeply dissatisfied yet he may be actively working towards the attainment of his ultimate objective(s), not for his own fulfillment but out of a sense of obligation/duty.

Until he has some ultimate objective(s), sense of obligation/duty. He will remain deeply unhappy with his life or deeply dissatisfied. 

14 minutes ago, Loreena said:

another example can be : a person may only wish to focus entirely on health. So his sole objective can be - full focus on health. Now that can be neatly broken down into a set of goals like fitness, diet, losing weight, nutrition, disease management etc. But the ultimate objective is/was good health. 

Because of individual purposes you become tense, something has to be achieved. Only way to remain absolutely healthy is to enjoy the present moment. 

Whenever there is no conflict between you and the whole, not even a rumor of conflict, you are healthy. How can you be healthy if you have some goal ? It means you are dissatisfied with what you are, then you are neurotic. 

[Nahm]

@Prabhaker With respect,- I enjoy purpose and I am not tense. I feel no conflict within me and I have goals. I am satisfied and I don't care what other poeple think about me, especially people who call other people neurotic. That reveals something about them, not me.

[Loreena]

5 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

Until he has some ultimate objective(s), sense of obligation/duty. He will remain deeply unhappy with his life or deeply dissatisfied.  

He is already dissatisfied with his life. But he has an objective in mind that he works towards nevertheless. 

7 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

Only way to remain absolutely healthy is to enjoy the present moment.

I respect your insight but you are viewing it from a completely different paradigm. It's sort of philosophical but I'm saying from a very practical point of view - person needs to work towards improving his health especially if he is having specific health issues. It's not like an obese man will sit on the couch all day long just enjoying the present moment but not actually doing anything to address his weight problem. 

22 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

How can you be healthy if you have some goal ? It means you are dissatisfied with what you are, then you are neurotic. 

If a person has a goal to improve his health, he is being very responsible in his approach to life. If he is already healthy enough, he may not need to do anything specifically for his health. He is completely normal in setting essential goals. It's not that he is dissatisfied but he needs to bring positive change or improvement in himself and around himself. This is real practical ground work, not just simply sitting and looking at the world and oneself and not doing anything to bring real change. Are you invalidating the hard work that people put in everyday to improve their lives and the lives of others by mocking them and calling them neurotic. How can taking good care of oneself be neurotic,lol. Your whole approach is very misleading. 

[Nahm]

@Loreena You have like a gift when it comes to common sense. Really awesome.

[Loreena]

@Captain Flint I actually did mean abstract life objectives. Mastery in your field is a really good one. Thank you for your input

[Prabhaker]

3 minutes ago, Captain Flint said:

With all the reactions you are getting here on your statements I'm trying to think you are just trolling us, LOL.

No, This is the way I live, I am telling you from my own experience.

5 minutes ago, Captain Flint said:

If you don't have desires (to some degree at least) - that doesn't mean you cannot have some specific direction to your life.

If you have desires, goals, it only shows that you have not reached state of meditation. Ask a child, "what's the purpose of life?", he will look at you as is you are a fool, he is enjoying life, why will he bother about purpose of life !

11 minutes ago, Captain Flint said:

The problem begins only when you are CRAVING for achieving your goal and you beilive that you are unhappy right now because you haven't achieved it.

You are dissatisfied with yourself, so you think about  'achieving your goal', I had lucrative government job, rich and educated parents , still I left my job, parents and live happily on pension. I have not seen anybody who is ambitious and happy. 

[Nahm]

@Captain Flint yo bro. You're reputation points are not indicative of your wisdom here. Well said. I don't think he is trolling at all. But I have noticed that about every 2 - 4 days, someone comes here, makes a username etc, and trolls the shit out of this place. Some go on for pages and pages!!! The skill of trolling is impressive and works so perfectly with the overall theme of this site. The way the trollers keep this neutral perspective and imply confusion triggering some to explain it is priceless. I trust I have been trolled on here myself.  I hope Leo never does anything to prevent it though because it is so fucking funny. 

[Steph1988]

I do not have anything abstract to say really.

I know what i want and work towards and i hope the journey will be as good as the results 

- Time for my interests and my family/friends i hope to gain that by having enough money to not get stuck in 40 hour jobs 30 hours is preferable 

- talking about that job i hope to enjoy my job in a certain way 

- an intimate relationship

- mastery in guitar playing

- a place for my own and someday starting a family

- I have a thirst for knowledge so i want to tend to that

- seeing more of the world  

This is enough to work towards and thinking in abstractions about it might come later.

@Loreena what is yours btw?

[Steph1988]

@Nahm haha i agree!

[Nahm]

@Prabhaker I just read what you wrote, and literally asked my kids, ages 5 and 6, "what is the purpose of life", and they both said, almost in perfect unison, "to be happy!!!", my son follow it up with "to have fun!!!".

I am ambitious and I am happy. That is why my kids respond as they did. Does this help you see this differently?

 

Also, worth contemplating, what were your parents like, and what belief(s) did you create about reality to make sense of it? 

 

 

[Prabhaker]

29 minutes ago, Loreena said:

He is already dissatisfied with his life. But he has an objective in mind that he works towards nevertheless. 

I also do many things but I have no objective. Do you think a pastor can ever be satisfied by spreading faith, hope and God's word ? If he is not enjoying the process of spreading faith, hope and God's word, right now; he will remain dissatisfied with his life.

 

37 minutes ago, Loreena said:

t's not like an obese man will sit on the couch all day long just enjoying the present moment but not actually doing anything to address his weight problem. 

An obese man cannot sit on the couch all day long just enjoying the present moment, unless he is a Buddha, an enlightened master. He has weight problem because he lived life in wrong way, not enjoying present moment. Living in the present moment doesn't mean to sit on the couch all day.

42 minutes ago, Loreena said:

Your whole approach is very misleading.

This is the way a meditator lives, people who have not heard about fitness, diet, losing weight, nutrition, disease management; also live a healthy life that too in very harsh conditions.

[Prabhaker]

13 minutes ago, Nahm said:

I am ambitious and I am happy.

When a man feels himself to be nothing, nobody, he starts projecting himself in the world of ambition - politically he wants to become somebody, a president, a prime minister, rich and famous. 

When ambition enters, creativity disappears -- because an ambitious man cannot be creative, because an ambitious man cannot love any activity for its own sake. While he is painting he is looking ahead; he is thinking, 'When am I going to get a Nobel Prize?' When he is writing a novel, he is looking ahead. He is always in the future -- and a creative person is always in the present.

Wherever there is desire and ambition, you are in bondage.

The family gives you ambition, and ambition is one of the hindrances for enlightenment. It gives you desires, it gives you a longing to be successful, and all these things create your tensions, your anxieties: how to be a celebrity?

Problems are created because the society wants you to be ambitious, and ambition can only be created if there is a goal in the future. For ambition, future is needed. And without ambition, the ego cannot be created. And the ego is the basic strategy of the society to rule over you, to exploit you, to oppress you, to keep you miserable.

[Arman]

I want to be unrestricted in my creative expression.