Ask yourself: What is my purpose in life?
Do you think it’s to be happy, honorable, or useful?
In this article, we’ll explore what different people believe is the purpose of life and why.
We will also be going into more detail about what makes life worth living and how you can find your own purpose in life.
Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Without life purpose
You become adrift throughout your life and everything you do feels meaningless.
However, finding your life purpose is often a process that involves thinking, research, and mature thought and experience.
After all, growing up is more than just becoming an adult.
Even though you can biologically grow, you become a complete human when you become conscious of yourself and what exactly you want to do with your life.
A lot of people feel that that this stage of growth comes automatically but you may need a little inspiration time and again to find your true purpose.
What Is The Purpose Of Life:
The purpose of life is not to be happy, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote.
- It is to be useful
- to be honorable
- to be compassionate
to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Mental Stages Of Development – The Scientific Breakthrough
For quite some time scientists viewed growth from a physical point of view.
Right from the time a child is born, he or she develops physically and his or her mind expands with age.
As the child matures into a teen, and later graduates to an adult, his or her mind also expands concurrently with these physical changes:
- However, it was assumed that once a child achieves adulthood, there was no more room for growth, not in the mind and not in the physical.
- But things changed when it was discovered that it is possible for an adult to grow new brain cells.
- This simply blew the roof of the notion that growth stopped automatically when people became adults.
Spiritually transforming yourself as an adult and finding a purpose in your life are two of the most crucial parts of self development at the adult stage.
What makes life worth living?
What makes life worth living? According to Maslow, self-actualization is the peak of human needs and everyone needs to aspire towards it at some point in life.
However, a more practical approach would be learn and experience everything you can in this lifetime, such as:
1. The joy of a child’s laughter
2. A moment in nature, like the sound of the ocean waves crashing against the shore
3. The feeling when you meet someone new and they smile at you
4. Watching your favorite TV show or movie for the first time with someone else who has never seen it before
5. Finding out that something you’ve been working hard on is finally finished and done well
6. Listening to your favorite song while driving down an open road late at night
What makes people feel happy and fulfilled?
It’s unquestionably not about more technology, more gadgets, or anything else to spend money on…
As Ralph Waldo Emerson stated, what makes a life worth living is:
1. To be useful
If you are not consistently helping someone else, what is the point of life? The real joy in life comes from serving others. Being useful to other people is one of the greatest happiness there is.
So what can you do today that will help another person live a better life or solve their problems?
2. To be honorable
It is to be honorable and not be selfish, but to honor other people’s values as much as your own.
And it is to use all of the tools, skills, talents, and lessons that you’ve learned throughout your life to achieve happiness.
3. To be compassionate
To see the world through a lens of care and compassion.
To be kind to others no matter who they are or where you find them, so long as your actions come from a place that is genuine in its intention.”
To show empathy and compassion for the people around us, we need to first understand their situation.
When someone is in pain or feels neglected it can be difficult not wanting them any worse off than they already are but there’s always ways that you could help without hurting feelings at all!
Four Keys towards Finding Life Purpose:
Finding an all important purpose in life can be a challenge sometimes and here are four important points to note just to be on the right track:
1. Take Care Of Your Survival Needs
Life is nothing but a day to day struggle for survival. You are always thinking about paying the bills, feeding your family and such daily struggles.
In the midst of all that getting to see the bigger world and contribute to it can be quite difficult.
It is important to relax your mind, and take charge of all your responsibilities and deal with them as effectively as you can.
Do not let the struggles of daily life define your destiny or limit your ability to dream big.
Always look at challenges as opportunities to grow stronger and learn and you will realize positive outcomes in your life. Embracing a challenge as an opportunity and not more as a threat is the first step towards overcoming it effectively.
In the day to day struggle for survival, take care of yourself and always make sure that every challenge that comes your way is an opportunity to grow stronger and to become more knowledgeable.
2. Explore Your Talents, Interests And Unique Gifts
Our life purpose is in most cases in built within us, it’s just a question of finding ourselves. In other words, what you excel in and enjoy doing is exactly what you are here to do on this earth.
Always follow your interest. Doing things that make you happy ensures you do them well. Whether its music, art, construction or any other interest you have, make sure to follow it with a passion. Additionally, set bigger goals and extend your perceived limits. Its only when you dream big that you can do big things.
3. No One Is Perfect
When finding life purpose there is no such thing as being perfect. It’s not really possible to get it right because the future is only for everyone to see. You can never be everything to everyone; at times you need to specialize on one thing at a time and progress steadily over time. Finding life purpose is not about conforming to expectations about you, or to find a fitting place in society. It’s about finding your true talents and interests each step at a time.
4. Don’t Be Afraid Of Failure
Life is meant to be lived. Do not be afraid to live. Always remember that no matter who you are or what you do, mistakes are always inevitable.
You can never be afraid to take advantage of opportunities of living your life because of the glaring reality of failure. Although failure can be confounding, look at it as an opportunity to learn something and to grow stronger in the future.
Embracing failure as part of the path to success trains you to have a reflex response to get up and try again every time you fall. Crafting a purposeful and fulfilling life can sometimes involve taking risks or taking a path not taken by others before you, but then again, it is when you explore the unknown that you become more aware of your true strengths and your ability to overcome any limitations you set for yourself.
Final Thoughts
Final thoughts on what is my purpose in life.
The purpose in life seems to be to be useful, honorable, and compassionate in order to achieve happiness.
- These three points are based on the input of what is the person’s purpose in life.
- The individual is likely to find great satisfaction and happiness if they can abide by these values.
Living a fully purposeful and fulfilling life is part and parcel of growth and development for many people.
Once you become a young adult and start meeting your lower needs such as a sense of belonging, security and safety, you can now shift and start to focus on higher needs including self transcending and of course self actualization.
Living a purposeful life is about becoming more conscious and aware of the world around you in a deeper way.
The context in which you live your life becomes broader and you see the big picture of the world and how you fit in. Finding your purpose is a journey that will be filled with mistakes, but you don’t need to be perfect. It’s better to strive for excellence than perfection. And there is more, your talents and interests are important.
Do not abandon what you love doing, develop your skills and become the best you can be in areas that interest you and most importantly, always follow your heart.
You can never satisfy people’s expectations and even when you do, they will always hold you to a higher standard than they used to before.
Do not be afraid to follow your heart even if its against the normal way of doing things or the expectations of others towards you.
Petri Maatta is a photographer, filmmaker, and webdesigner who has been working for over 20 years in the creative industry. Fascinated by manifesting for business reasons, Petri was determined to find out what it took to create success. He started his career with seven years of business failures before he found success by learning about manifesting from a mentor with a Fortune 500 company. Today Petri shares his knowledge through DreamMaker courses designed to help people change their businesses and lives while living on their terms.
STAY IN THE LOOP
Subscribe to our free newsletter.
Stay up to date! Get all the latest & greatest posts delivered straight to your inbox