Saturday, January 16, 2010

Goals, purpose and does it really all matter?

I need to start this post letting you know that I'm fine.  I'm in good spirits, I'm not depressed, I'm actually quite content right now.  I'm not drunk, I've just been thinking about this a bunch today and needed to jot my thoughts down somewhere, so I figured either in the lyrics of a song, where people might mistake it for a cry for help or in a blog post where I can put more context around it.  I opted for the latter.

I've spent the last month or so being extremely goal oriented and motivated.  I've really enjoyed it and I've felt quite productive, which is something I hadn't felt in some time.

Work is going great, I feel challenged and home life is busy as I challenge myself with daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals.  And for the record, I've been hitting every one!  Booya!

Today I started wondering why I'm doing this and whether it even mattered at all.  This lead me to thinking about life in general and what it was all about.  Does anything I do really matter?  Why do I care?  Why should I keep trying?  Is life a game?  Is there a winner?  Who's keeping score?  Heck - I hate competing at anything I'm not good at... so if I find out that it was a game, I'd be pissed.  LOL.

After many hours of pondering and of course, some searching on my favorite search engine (yes, searching for the meaning of life on Google is a bit ridiculous, but I wanted to see what others were saying) I think I figured out that I do what I do because I don't know what else to do. 

This is not a bad thing.  I wake up each morning, I plan my days, I go to work, I try to be a good person, I try to leave a lasting impression on those that I meet.  But that about sums it up.  There is really no greater mystery, there is really no other purpose.

It's weird when I think about it in the Christian (Roman Catholic) sense, which is that one's purpose is to serve God.  Really?  So - I'm to believe that God put me on earth to go through this experience called life, because he made his son do it too, and he died for our sins and was resurrected, and now we're supposed to serve him and the rest of mankind to our best ability so that when we die we'll join him in heaven.  So - I guess all the things wrong with the world are part of His plan too and we just have to deal with it and get through, trying to be the best we can each day.  Hmm - kinda seems "out there".

Ok - so let's say that the purpose is to love and be loved.  To procreate and watch our family members grow up, grow old and die.  Ok - maybe it is, but that doesn't seem like it's very purposeful. We do what makes us feel "right" and what we think we should be doing.  We partner and marry and have kids and raise them because that's what people "do"... again, the people that I love and love me is a great feeling in the moment, but I know from experience that those feelings don't sustain.  So I asked myself again, what's the point?

I started to realize that I live for me.  I think we all do, it's quite selfish, but makes perfect sense.

Our goals, success, happiness, love all end with our death.  So, whether I reach thousands of people and somehow change the world or lock myself away from it doesn't really matter in the end.  Sure the first one sounds like a lot more fun, so that's likely what I'll keep trying to do... I just think I now realize that whether I succeed or not has no greater meaning or purpose, it's just another memory for me in the short and almost invisible time frame that I'll refer to as my life.

I think I'm going to go take my next French lesson... not sure why... just something to do.  :)

1 comment:

Nadon said...

It finally came to me - and trust me I've heard these words a million times, but it's only when I really listened to myself say them and believe them that I understood them.

There is no greater purpose. You are lucky and get to experience life. The life that you have is what you make of it. You will get exactly what you want to take out of life, not more, not less.