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Purpose

What brings you a sense of purpose/meaning?

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Kelkat 5 Feb 5
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32 comments

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12

I've never felt a "purpose" and I don't believe that we have any high moral of philosophical reason for being either. I just live by the 3 principles:

  • Try to be happy and enjoy life - you're lucky to be alive so don't waste it
  • Try to leave the world a better place than when you arrived - discover something, make something, help people do that stuff, just advance science or improve the world in a little way.
  • Try not to upset too many people along the way - do no harm while you're having fun or inventing stuff

Other than that, my love for the natural world gives me strength and my constant curiosity and desire to learn about the world around us 🙂

My answer is like yours, except for the part about not upsetting anyone along the way. 😉

@birdingnut Well you can upset some people ... I can think of a few I'd like to upset ... just not too many 😉

12

Many years it was raising my kids, they are now in their 30s, so I focus on environmental issues, trying to protect the world they and their kids must live in.

8

Helping others.

8

Volunteering for and donating to good causes.

8

My kids. I am a single parent. They are my world

7

My children and their children. I want an inhabitable safe world for the babies.

7

Art. Music. This site. Answering this question. I have learned in life that the simplest pleasures are the sweetest berries to be savored. Did I just write that? I think I puked in my mouth a little.

because of the berries? try a different kind

7

Intellectually, I think relationships (family, friends, etc.) give life meaning and doing good for others provides purpose. In truth, though, I don't really feel it.

5

I am retired. So just getting up in morning gives me purpose. Meaning in my life comes from helping others and doing volunteer work. I am involved in my local town government and am politically active in state and national politics.

5

Donuts

5

Being in the community

5

I usually do it on purpose..

4

My purpose is to live each day the best I can and to help those I love. Beyond that, I have none.

4

Something that you enjoy doing and that offers the possibility of accomplishing something worthwhile.

4

For a lot of years it was raising my kids but their grown now so without any hesitation it's playing music. I play a LOT of music 🙂 I'm in a morris dancing band and run a fortnightly session and play in other sessions. My kids laugh at me because I'm over 25 years clean but i spend a huge amount of time in pubs 🙂 we also have 'kitchen sessions' where we go to each others homes and sit around playing tunes, drinking tea and talking 'bollocks' 🙂
? a session is when a group of musicians get together to play -usually folk music
? morris dancing is a very strange phenomena and probably best you-tubed
?a pub is a lot like a bar
? bollocks are actually male genitals but in this sense used to mean 'chatter chatter'
😉

3

Improve yourself. Improve your environment. Well, those are the ideals. I think that as soon as you ask yourself "what's it all for?" you've fallen into an intellectual trap. Look around you. Have fun. Purpose is subjective.

3

I devoted my life to another person, long ago.
But beings I'm no longer bound by my words to her...
I don't know...
I guess it's just survival.

3

You can only give yourself purpose because the universe is nothingness.

3

The balance of the universe.

3

Nothing... I never choose any of the things I have, I have never asked for this life in the first place.

2
  1. Being a Dad......only got here through divorce
  2. Music.....I'm getting psychotic about it.
  3. Art.....it comes from many angles now that i never appreciated before
  4. Taking care of myself physically
  5. Money.....makes life fun and more bearable
twill Level 7 Feb 5, 2018
2

I live day to day. I'm alive because I have to be.

not to mess with your head but why do you say you have to be? I don't think we have to be alive and somehow we create our own meaning

I don't like life rn. I also don't have the guts to kill myself either. I live with depression.

@Sarahroo29 I read in what you just said.... depression lives in you and is sucking you dry!!! Do something about it... that should be your purpose.

Hugs

@GipsyOfNewSpain Okay.

@Kelkat Thanks.

2

Humility. Realizing I don't really matter by myself. I am only truly powerful when I understand how I fit into bigger wholes. My purpose is to understand who and where I am in relation to everything else. That is when something can get done.

2

I'm pretty sure we are here to create. It doesn't matter if it's art, music, carpentry, inventions.... It seems to me that once the basics of getting by are covered, making new things is really the only thing we can do to add to our world as we know it.

2

I don't know anymore. I feel like I have no sense of purpose currently. I have always had goals and still do but my current goals are vague and I feel a sense of dissatisfaction with my life.

I applied to help with an anti-poverty group on Friday despite not being able to attend their orientation due to work. Hopefully we can work something out since the way this group runs is in my wheelhouse.

The grandkids Im helping to raise are becoming older and need less attention, I had few friends but have had to give up on them due to racist bullshit and I realize that I am likely depressed and lonely so do not want to make any life changes until I come out of it.

To circle back to original question, I need to stop spending all my time online or watching tv from my bedroom and do something fulfilling.

Hope you can find something. Looked up where you are. You are not too far from Orlando. Maybe check out some non-believer or anti-racist groups on Meetup? What you describe sounds like something I know very well: when your own inertia keeps you from living how you want. If you have decent health insurance you could check out a therapist? Take care.

Good honest answer Sherry: Seems like purpose, like all of life has its Ebbs and Flows. If you have a vagueness or detachment now, that's understandable. Just be open to what you discover, what comes your way, etc. But yes, TV is a soul killer. Make that change first....fill that time with some effort at discovery perhaps?

I have always involved myself in projects for my purpose. As I get older these kinds of projects are becoming harder to find

@kmdskit3 Orlando is 3 hours away. Ironically I lived in Orlando and Kissimmee for years even though I had no close friends and little family I think I was less dissatisfied because there was always something to do. I live in a town where there is nothing going on which added to my schedule of being in bed before dark so I can get up at 3am has just sucked.

Hugs

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