What Is The Real Purpose Of Life?

What Should Our Purpose In Life Be?

Do you sometimes wonder what the purpose of your life is? We see so many people out there sharing their highlight reels on social media and we get caught in the "compare and despair" trap. It can feel like we're not exciting enough, or doing enough, or happy enough. But, is being constantly happy what life is all about?

Is Happiness the Ultimate Goal?

I'm a big fan of being happy. I really believe that there is an awful lot to be happy about if you look around you. We live in a beautiful country and have more than we need. We have financial stability, plenty to eat, a roof over our head, and our children are doing well - life is pretty good.

That being said, there are still times when happiness is a little hard to come by. Society as a whole tells us that happiness is the ultimate goal and when you are happy you have everything. But there have to be times when we are less than happy and times when things get tough. There are always checks and balances in life and none of us get a free ride.

Leaving A Legacy

Ralph Waldo Emerson sees things from a different perspective - his quote (below) sums up the idea that there is much more to life than just seeking to be happy. We should also be thinking about making a worthwhile contribution to the world around us - maybe it's not always "about me" - maybe it's about leaving a legacy of worthwhile actions.

It would be nice to skip through life, singing and dancing, living in a world of sunshine, rainbows, and sparkle. It is much harder to be honourable and compassionate, and focused on others as well as ourselves. These are such deep and enriching attributes that we miss out on if we selfishly live just for our own pleasure. Happiness can be quite a shallow goal - it's easy to buy stuff or to be selfish and be quite happy, it's harder to think of others and feel their pain and come alongside them and show care and compassion.

Considering Others

It can be a fairly tough call to act honourably in a situation where it is easy to seek your own happiness first rather than the welfare of someone else. I've been around long enough to see friends do fairly despicable things and the betrayal that comes from a "friend" is the worst kind. Our society is very "me" focused now days and nobody looks twice at someone who climbed to the top at the expense of others. I think that seeking the best for others - even if you have to do it at your own expense - makes for a much better world to live in.

There's always a balance - kindness first and always, but also self-preservation and not allowing others to treat you poorly - or to always be pleasing others if it's causing you hurt. Maturity and wisdom come into play - we set healthy boundaries and that allows us to help others without losing ourselves in the process.

Living Our Best Life

To have lived, and lived well is going to be my ongoing mantra - to be able to look back on our life and know that we lived the best life we could, that we did no harm to others for our own benefit and to know that our life and decisions contributed to making the world even a little better would be a great legacy to leave. This is something that we need to remind ourselves of regularly because it's so easy to get caught up in the hoopla of the day to day search for bigger and better. Good old Ralph Waldo had something to say about legacies too and I'll leave it to him to wrap this up....

How Are You Doing?

Do Ralph's words ring a bell with you? Do you want to live life with purpose and not just to pursue the shallow and easy? I hope you'll read some more of my posts and join me as we live life with joy and purpose.