"The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but
finding something to live for."
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The other day I was struggling with small
weeds and tiny wild plants growing along the edge of the walls, concrete
structures around my garden. For seasons I had to deal with the back breaking
task, pulling the unwelcomed squatters by hand. Cutters and scissors could not
reach the base. These intruders were so close to the edge of the vertical
walls. Not opting for vicious chemicals, I had to make do with untidy tidying.
That day I decided to rummage my tool
box, looking for anything that may relieve me the angst. A straight blade paint
scraper caught my attention. It had been left in the tool box for years. There
was slight rust forming. Since I repainted my house, it had lost its purpose.
It was lying in the tool box, straight, like a decaying corpse. Supposed to die
with the death of its purpose.
Since that day, the former paint
scraper has been transformed into a garden tool. It cuts those pesky weeds and
wild plants clean, thanks to its pliable blade. Its wooden handle regained the
shine through frequent handling.
I have found it a new life. I have
given it a new purpose. A pivot that saved it from death by corrosion. From
being a useless instrument, it is now a tool of choice for gardening. Eureka! I
have discovered a new purpose for this old tool. Tools need a purpose to have
value. Everything human made has been to serve a need, a purpose.
YOU ARE ONTO A PURPOSE, IS IT YOURS?
What about you? Do you need a personal purpose to live usefully? Yes, no and maybe are all correct answers. Life purpose
is not oxygen or water. You can live without it. It is not if you can live
without, it is about the way you live without. Don’t worry. You’ll still wake
up in the morning. The only difference is; you might not be ‘raring to go.’ You
don’t have a compelling driver to. If you do not have a life purpose, and you
woke up in the morning raring to go, it might be for a wrong reason. At least,
for you.
True. You are energized, powered by a
sense of purpose. Someone else’s purpose. Like what I did for my paint scraper,
someone would have found you a purpose. Except you would not feel fulfilled at
the end of the day, the week, the month or the year. It’s like running on the
spot, when you are in a race, feeling engaged but getting nowhere near the
exhilaration of crossing the finish line. You kept busy living someone’s
purpose. You might enjoy a false sense of contentment. When it counts, when you
are down, there is no personal victory to savour. No personal trophies to
count. No real fulfilment to lift you up. When you are working on other’s
purpose, you are just part of the equation.
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH?
Meet Mel
Robbins before you dismiss the important idea of having a life purpose. Mel
Robbins, whom I have come to admire as the “attorney for action” is the author
of the hard driving book, ‘Stop Saying You’re Fine.’ It is a no nonsense guide
to coming unstuck in life. She teaches inner kung-fu, the art and science of
seizing the immediate moment to act on your desired change before your dumb and
loving brain tells you to stuff it. A fundamental call throughout her book; find
your purpose and meaning in life, take action to achieve what you want before
your protective brain tells you to cool it. She says “A sense of purpose is an incredible alarm
clock.”
The power of purpose fluctuates accordingly, to the
circumstances you are in. From where he felt the power of purpose, legendary
psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl thought it was a kiss of life. Frankl carefully
recorded how having a life purpose, a meaning to live for, decided who lived or
died. He witnessed the phenomena in a Nazi concentration camp where he was prisoner.
No laboratory experiment could possibly match the intensity of stress test at
Auschwitz, where the will to survive faltered and extinguished for prisoners
who had no purpose to cling on. Those who held dear to their inner search for a
meaning to life, survived. The survivors were those who had hope of a goal.
Those who found an inner meaning to endure the suffering, such as looking
forward to their loved ones or finishing a project started before their incarceration,
managed to survive despite murderous conditions. Others who had no will to
live, no purpose to live with, perished through deteriorating health and even
suicide.
COULD SUICIDES BE PREVENTED?
Suicides could have been
prevented. Frankl noted, “...it may well be that an individual’s impulse to
take his life would have been overcome
had he been aware of some meaning and purpose worth living for.”
Even in free society,
Frankl noticed the phenomenon of “existential vacuum.” He wrote in “Man’s
Search for Meaning,” the must- read book for people vacillating on the need for
a life purpose, “Not a few cases of suicide can be traced back to this
existential vacuum. Such widespread phenomena as depression, aggression and
addiction are not understandable unless we recognize the existential vacuum
underlying them.”
Nido Qubein, in his
motivation book, “Get the Best from Yourself,” shares a story about the tragic
suicide of a rich Californian girl. Her
twenty-first birthday cake had 21 candles, each wrapped with a thousand-dollar
bill. A few days after the auspicious event, her parents found her body. In one
of her hand was a suicide note that said, “You
have given me everything to live with, but nothing to live for!” What a
parable. ‘Everything to live with, nothing to live for.’ What metaphors.
AREN’T WE AUTOMATICALLY WILLED TO LIVE?
There are some who believed that just
because we are humans, we have a will to survive. And that raw will is enough.
We do not need a purpose to live for. Isn’t the will to survive enough to keep
us going? Steven Reiss, Ph. D, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the
Ohio State University, answers the question pointedly in Chapter 7 of his
insightful book, “Who Am I?” The chapter dwells on the concept of value- based
happiness, in contrast with feel-good happiness.
He emphasized the case for the need of
meaning and purpose in life, rebutting a reader who challenged Reiss and called
him ignorant not to recognize that the greatest motive for living is just the
will to survive. The professor argued that if it is just the will to live,
then, the fundamental motive is maintaining the biological functions to keep
the cellular activity going on for as long as possible. This is just like
finding value in living while in a state of coma. ‘Living on purpose’ is a
state blessed by excitement and empowerment that comes from value-based
happiness. Achieved, through finding a meaning in life
WHAT “MORE” CAN A LIFE PURPOSE DO FOR ME?
Despite the affluence we are enjoying,
the abundance of financial and leisure opportunities, there is a constant
yearning for more. Laura Fortgang , a life coach and bestselling author noted
in the introduction to her ’90 Days to a
New Life Direction; ‘all along what we wanted from the “more” was fulfilment;
feeling satisfied and finding meaning.’
A
life purpose drives you to do your best work and rewards you a meaningful life. Driven by a sense of
purpose, you will do your best work. Purposeful work is often the result of
marrying your natural talents and skills with your passions. You will also find
the greatest joy in the process. The purpose that you find will naturally be
sourced from your pool of personal interests. Your deepest interests will be
aligned to your beliefs and values. Work aligned to your beliefs and values
gives you meaning and motivation. It will haul you out of bed in the morning in
positive anticipation.
Your best work is solving a bigger
problem, making a more significant contribution and using your talents and
skills, driven by a passion to make an impact on the lives of others. As Laura
Fortgang writes about this beautifully, “Today,
we are undergoing a switch from measuring ourselves by external factors such as
wealth, fame, public image, and jobs that look good, to evaluating ourselves
internally by how we feel, by whether we like who we see in the mirror every
day, by what we contribute to our communities and how our work impact others.”
When you are doing work aligned to
your life purpose, you will be immersed in the process. As Csikszentmihalyi
describes it, you are in “the Flow.” You are totally focussed. There is joy and
energy. You will be doing your best work. Dopamine, the feel good biochemical
is released in your brain. With good work, you will find true pleasure.
A
life purpose provides constancy and a unifying sense of direction. Richard Leider writes in
‘The Power of Purpose,’ about a “unifying sense of direction” which can
withstand stress, and is actually strengthened by overcoming difficulties. The author thinks that purpose provides
coherence and focus. It has a way of “ordering values and activities around
itself.
It validates relevancy of thoughts and activities,
helping you become more effective in living your life, spending time and effort
only on stuff that matters. A clear sense of purpose provides a powerful focus
that drives you forward despite risks and roadblocks, and even tragedies.
A life purpose helps you to cope with
crises. Viktor Frankl’s story details a life of daily stresses and crises within
the concentration camp. The will to live was sustained by the strength of the
inner meaning, the focus on a life purpose.
The Atlantic has an article on the impact of
life purpose on health. The focus is on Victor Strecher, a professor of health
behaviour and health education at University of Michigan School of Public
Health. Strecher shared, he lost his sense of purpose in life after the death
of Julia, 19, his daughter. It quoted him saying, “The only way I could regain
it was to think beyond myself, beyond my grief; get over my ego.” He created an
app ‘On Purpose’ to help people find theirs. It is aligned with the finding of Neal
Roese, Ph.D, the author of “If Only.” To recover from a tragic loss, you have
to have an altruistic purpose, bigger than yourself such as developing the next
generations.
Frederick Nietzsche, the German
philosopher hit it on the head when he said, “He who has a why can endure anyhow.”
Laura Fortgang a life coach and author
of “90 days to A New Life Direction,” agrees. She observes that finding a
purpose accelerates progress to healing a major life transition. She also asks,
“Would you like to have your outside world better reflect your ideal inner
realm? In other words, do you long for peace of mind? And wouldn’t it be nice
to stop wondering if there is more you’re meant to do?” If you have a purpose, you have your most meaningful
work cut out. There is no more wondering. You know what to do and you are
excited to carry it out. Your life purpose enables focus. You need not prove
anything to anyone. You are on a quest to fulfilment. Nobody can tell you how
to do it. And when you are at it, you would be totally immersed in “the Flow.”
When you are in that state, you are totally immersed in joy. Concentration. Concentration
on what gives you the joy. It creates more joy. Sustained joy. A realization
engulfs you. ‘Life is worth living.’
A
life purpose allows you to experience your ideal self. George Bernard Shaw, the
poly math shares his sentiment: “This is
the true joy of life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a
mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap
heap; the being force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of
ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself in
making you happy.”
You will
probably find a meaningful life purpose in giving rather than getting. Purpose
is most energizing when it is bigger than yourself, what you want or what you
need. Harnessing your talents and skills, making a contribution to influence a
change in your field of passion. It should be “larger than your self-interest” It
is not a goal to get something. It is about making a positive contribution to a
cause, transcending your personal boundaries.
Laura Fortgang observes that
recognizing how you impact other people becomes crucial to moving your life in
a more satisfying direction. In her book, she encourages us to think of who you want to be, rather than what you
want to be. Think about the difference. And the difference it will make to
your thinking.
A life purpose gives you a sense of
control over your future. You are doing things that makes you feel good,
satisfying your need for control of your lives and your propensity to figure
out the ideal future. Dan Gilbert writes in his fabulous book, ‘Stumbling on
Happiness;’ “Being effective-changing things, influencing things and making
things happen-is one of the fundamental needs with which human brains seem to
be naturally endowed, and much of our behaviour from our infancy onward is
simply an expression of this penchant for control.”
When you are taking actions aligned,
to your talents, skills, passion, values and beliefs, you find fulfilment. When
these come together, you experience your ideal self.
WHAT IS A “LARGER THAN LIFE” PURPOSE?
“The
highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they
become by it.”
-John Riskin
In “The Ancestral Mind” Dr. Gregg D.
Jacobs notes that altruism is wired in us. He writes in a subchapter, ‘Helping
Yourself by Helping Others;’
“Altruism is the feeling, developed through
natural selection that most directly connects us to a cause beyond ourselves.
Too much preoccupation with ourselves
can lead to anxiety and depression by increasing concentration on problems; altruism
reduces focus on ourselves and serves as a distraction from worries.”
He further notes that altruism has
been the ancestral way of life. Contrary to popular belief, Dr. Jacobs shares
that rather than plundering each other, our ancestors were more inclined to
helping each other to survive. He cites many positives from altruism such as
improved positive emotions, improved attitudes and feelings of greater
contentment with what we have, increased self-esteem and a sense of well-being
by strengthening belief in our own skills and strengths and, last but not
least, reduction in anger and social isolation, bolstering social support.
To achieve real satisfaction and well-being,
you must pursue a purpose beyond yourself; to give rather than to get. The purpose
statements of these well-known personalities serve as examples of having a
“larger than life mission.”
Mother Theresa: “To show mercy and compassion to the dying.”
Oprah Winfrey: “To be a teacher. And to be known for inspiring my students to be more than they thought they could be.”
Denise Morrison (CEO, Campbell Soup): “To serve as a leader, live a balanced life, and apply ethical principles to make a significant difference.
Amanda Steinberg (Founder, Dailyworth.com): “To use my gifts of intelligence, charisma and serial optimism to cultivate the self-worth and net-worth of women around the world.”
Dr. Jacobs quotes Allan Luks who surveyed thousands of volunteers documenting a phenomenon, the helper's high. This phenomenal emotion consists of sensations of warmth, increased energy and euphoria. These positive feelings can lead to long term relaxation and calm. In that same page, he mentions Harvard psychiatrist, George Vaillant's finding that altruism is one of the qualities that helped graduates cope with the stress from life. He studied the participants for 40 years.
It is found in a major study that men who volunteered for community organizations were 250% less likely to die from any cause than men who did not volunteer. This study involve 2,700 residents of Tecumseh, Michigan. Dr. Jacobs also mentions the studies of Drs. David Sobel and Robert Ornstein, the authors of ‘The Healthy mind, Healthy Body Handbook,’ that helping (others) is associated with boosted immune functioning, fewer colds and headaches, and relief from pain and insomnia.
Mother Theresa: “To show mercy and compassion to the dying.”
Oprah Winfrey: “To be a teacher. And to be known for inspiring my students to be more than they thought they could be.”
Denise Morrison (CEO, Campbell Soup): “To serve as a leader, live a balanced life, and apply ethical principles to make a significant difference.
Amanda Steinberg (Founder, Dailyworth.com): “To use my gifts of intelligence, charisma and serial optimism to cultivate the self-worth and net-worth of women around the world.”
Dr. Jacobs quotes Allan Luks who surveyed thousands of volunteers documenting a phenomenon, the helper's high. This phenomenal emotion consists of sensations of warmth, increased energy and euphoria. These positive feelings can lead to long term relaxation and calm. In that same page, he mentions Harvard psychiatrist, George Vaillant's finding that altruism is one of the qualities that helped graduates cope with the stress from life. He studied the participants for 40 years.
It is found in a major study that men who volunteered for community organizations were 250% less likely to die from any cause than men who did not volunteer. This study involve 2,700 residents of Tecumseh, Michigan. Dr. Jacobs also mentions the studies of Drs. David Sobel and Robert Ornstein, the authors of ‘The Healthy mind, Healthy Body Handbook,’ that helping (others) is associated with boosted immune functioning, fewer colds and headaches, and relief from pain and insomnia.
Experience Corp, a non profit organization which provides academic help, deployed people of 55 years and older to tutor students from kindergarten to third grade. Grades and morale of the students significantly increased. Depression rates of the senior citizen tutors fell. The tutors' mobility, stamina and flexibility increased. Improvements in executive functioning and memory were detected.
This type of altruism is identified as
“generativity” in Dr. Neal Roese’s book. He describes generativity as giving
back to the community with a special emphasis on nurturing the younger
generation. It was discovered by Dan McAdam that this altruistic effort is a
particularly effective antidote to grief from tragedy and loss, with benefits
of improved mental health. General life satisfaction score increases. Recent
studies back the positive health claims of having a life purpose. Amongst the
benefits, researchers claim, having a purpose in life is beneficial to the
health of the central nervous system. Patricia Boyle and colleagues at the Rush
Alzheimer’s Disease centre found that of the 900 older people they followed for
seven years, those with a high purpose in life were 50% less likely to develop
Alzheimer’s disease.
HOW DO I INVENT MY LIFE PURPOSE?
Having a
life purpose is having an uplifting power from within. It generates the
excitement and energy to move you forward, towards your ideal self. It strengthens your sense of self-worth.
However, a life purpose is not something to be invented or injected. Finding your purpose requires a process of uncovering. There is a life purpose inside you. You have had a glimpse of it when you were working passionately on a piece of work. It takes intention and mindful effort to uncover it.
However, a life purpose is not something to be invented or injected. Finding your purpose requires a process of uncovering. There is a life purpose inside you. You have had a glimpse of it when you were working passionately on a piece of work. It takes intention and mindful effort to uncover it.
Many leave
the uplifting power dormant inside them, not uncovering it and bring it to
life. They live in what Frankl described as “existential vacuum.” It is a state where, in the words of the
great psychiatrist, “No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition
tells him what he ought to do; sometimes, he does not even know what he wishes
to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he
does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).”
Like everything that has ever been created,
all human beings have a purpose. It is either you enjoy the fulfilment of
living your purpose or experience drudgery, being sucked into other people’s
purpose. Are you living on purpose? Whose?