Depending on how a person is born, their birth location and place in society, their culture and their education, getting a sense of the meaning and purpose of life may vary vastly. It can run the gamut from surviving, enjoying an easy, carefree life, while a large number of people don’t have the time, the education or the leisure to ask themselves questions about the deep meaning and purpose in life.
Some don’t seem to care about it while others will embark on a deeply personal journey to finding things out. According to the individual, this quest will vary a whole lot. No matter the intensity of our intent, we can all ask ourselves what is so important in our lives?
For those of us who are ready to start that journey, it’s useful to first explore and search where we ought to go and what we’ll do when we find our answers. Then set both short-term and long-term goals that align with our values and passions.
When we’ve done it, we can connect with activities, places and communities of people that share our values and interests, including various spiritual or philosophical traditions to find meaning and purpose, as well as a fertile terrain for the personal growth we’re after. Quite an undertaking, in fact a lifelong project that will demand curiosity, courage, open-mindedness, flexibility, sacrifices, determination and above all, persistence.
We have an infinite number of choices, options and paths and we can embark on them as we see fit. Dr. Itai Ivtzan, a psychologist says that meaning refers to how we “make sense of life and our roles in it,” while purpose refers to the “aspirations that motivate our activities” This would suggest that in the absence of either, our life lacks a story.
Still, no matter what people will tell us, say or think, this exploratory work is really totally up to us!
(To be continued...)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment