Surely,living and existing must mean different things...Putting it simply,living is purposeful existence. Purpose here can be defined dynamically and relatively. The action that seems purposeful to me when I was 15 may not seem all that purposeful at 30 or 40...And the same thing might not at all be termed purposeful by some other person. Perceptions differ. Time and experience are other factors that influence what a purposeful action is for us.
So, why at all do we need a purposeful existence..? A purposeful existence lends a direction to life...It is really a pleasure to proceed in a direction, that is determined by your goals, and tackle the barriers that come your way and ultimately succeed.
In whatever way one defines purpose, it takes guts and motivation to see it to it that the purpose is achieved at the end of the day...! That is because, 'living' does not stop with identifying a purpose...It only starts there.....
2 comments:
I tend to disagree a bit. "A purposeful existence lends a direction to life". No. I guess it should have been "Have a direction in life. Then your life will be purposeful". And not the other way around. Every one who lives in this world has a purpose. Whether that purpose leads to a good direction to your life is what is important. Thats just my feeling. You r free to argue :-)
(@ homes)
Nice bit...'purpose of life is life itself'! There are a few things I would like to mention...First, 'Are we any diff.?' (from the insects!) Most definitely yes! Evolutionarily there seems to be a bias(an advantage brought about by evolution) towards the homo sapiens . Humans are the most evolved (so far) with powers of reasoning and language (to name a few)which gives them an edge in survival, in comparison with other species. There are a lot more things that a human does when compared to an insect! Therefore, we ARE different!
My contention is...It's a boon in itself to be born as a human...I believe, you are born as a human to accomplish something...(something that is distinctly different from what all other species can do!) To say that all that we, as humans, do is 'live, reproduce,and die' is degrading ourselves!! If we end up doing just that, we havent really made use of the greatest gift of all, being born as a human! The bottom line is, as humans, we must TRY to do something different, something that mankind will later be proud of...
(@ Krishna )This is where 'purpose' comes in. Hundred years after I am gone, if I can make people say, 'Long ago, there lived this person...who did this n this..and whose efforts made life easier for fellow beings...' , then I have definitely lived with a purpose that turned out to be beneficial! Well..even when the next door kid grows up to be a great man and says, 'I learnt this virtue from this person...' u have made a mark...
Thus, purpose precedes direction, when you assert that direction is the means of achieving or fulfilling your purpose...
'find the purpose, the means will follow...' is something we have all heard!
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