The Purposeful Life

Why do we do so many crazy, ridiculous, meaningless things in our lives.

We work really hard, or try to find a job really hard, or give up and find an illegal job and work really hard or we find a crappy job and try really hard not to work really hard because maybe then, we still have won.

When we meet someone; we get their name and what they do for a living.

We judge each other and ourselves by the hierarchy of the jobs: that is a real thing, but not a real labeled thing.  We all know that the President is at the top and that the President of the Nation is only under the President of the world and the President of the universe. (President can be replaced by any number of hierarchical names like king, emperor, man-made-god, whatever)  and travels downward to the lowest level, which is either beggar man or thief, depending on whether or not you recognize the legitimacy of the organized criminal, in which case the Godfather is similar to President, but not usually at a national level.

I said usually.

Presidents go all the way down to Mom and Pop businesses where one is the president and the other is everything else.  It's still an hierarchy.

Why do jobs and titles and hierarchies mean so much to us humans?  Is it real? Is it just a man-made construct for a group that finds competition necessary to knowing if we are successful?

Is it just a way of avoiding why we are on the planet?

WHY ARE WE HERE?

Why do we struggle?

Why are we only happy when we feel we are valuable, important, purposeful? 

Why do we search so hard for our purpose, for a reason to be?

Why do we think that our life has to be compared to anyone else's life. Is that even possible?  What is a struggle to one person is a given success to another.  

How do we simplify, learn to live as a part of the life on earth and also find our purpose.

We keep hearing about mindfulness.  Being fully in the moment.  Keeping your mind where you are, doing what you are doing, not judging the experience, just feeling it, living it, being it.  It is very similar to what artists describe when they are working on their creation.  Its like the athlete's "Zone". 

We can live there.  Be one with the carrot we are peeling, vacuuming in the "Zone". 

So what about empathy?  If you are mindful, is it possible?  Is it needed?  If you are being without judging, do you need to try to put yourself in the other person's place? 

I don't know if anyone can live mindfully all the time.  But self-awareness is a good start.  Aim for the best you, the noncompetitive best you, the you that is doing everything you do mindfully, but knows when you are not there.  Know yourself: be aware of your own buttons,  your own character flaws, your quirky connections to certain things and aversions to other things that seem to be fine with your friends.

Maybe your purpose is to know yourself--the you that everyone else sees, the you that you see in the mirror, the you that you try hard to pretend does not and has never existed--all of you.

Or maybe being is the only real purpose anyone needs.

Whatever, live with purpose.  You are part of the universe and why-ever you are here, its important.