PURPOSE OF LIFE
Find your purpose and find your passion, they say. I always wondered what that meant. I always wondered what purpose I am born for. After reading countless self-help articles and watching innumerable TEDx videos, I started believing that doing social work to help people who do not have the same privileges as I do is my purpose in life. After all, everyone kept saying that serving people is our greatest purpose in life. However, I could not wrap my head around this completely. I wondered what about millions of people who are not directly doing anything to uplift people in need. What about people who are not working directly to solve the world’s biggest problems?
They say answers come to you when you ask questions. And when I was asking these questions I stumbled upon this quote from the movie, Dead Poet’s Society. It said, ‘Poetry, beauty, romance, love – these are what we stay alive for’. I started reading about how literature can bring about tangible impact in the world. I searched why music became such an integral part of human society. I read about how stories shape our lives. Through all this, I started decoding the purpose dilemma. The purpose of our lives is to make a difference but we all are meant to make a difference in our unique ways. We all have unique gifts. Not everyone wants to be a policymaker and not everyone is fit to work as an international aid worker in 3rd world countries. Some of us add values through our words, with our ability to connect with others or with just our thoughts and musings.
The best analogy here is the Titanic story. When the Titanic was going down there were many people who were helping with rescue operations but there were also these bunch of musicians who chose to play the music till their last breath on the boat to keep everyone calm and to help everyone deal with panic. Now they didn’t do the most obvious thing but they definitely did their part, the best they could do in times of disaster. So, the end note is that the purpose of our life is definitely to serve others but not always in the most obvious ways. It’s all about using your gift and sharing your uniqueness with the world to make a difference in your own unique way.
