Welcome and Welcome Back, Liz Purpose has been shredded and rehashed in the past but there is always room for new thought. I've perused through some older threads to get perspective on the contrasting opinions concerning purpose. Purpose is something that has been delved into since the beginning of our time.
My view is that purpose has different levels, with the first being primary. The primary gives us definite purpose, eat, sleep, procreate etc, involuntary without much thought about it. Basically we just live, exist. As babies we ingest, digest and our purpose comes out the other end. Yuk! The secondary level stems from socialization. School, sports, chores, hobbies etc, become our purpose with some of it falling into the involuntary category due to parental and academic confinements. We are still at this point having to adhere to external dictates but much of our purpose stems from personal likes and dislikes. Some parents may ask if you want to join the soccer team or take piano lessons, while other parents may simply decide what you should do, basically defining your purpose. Third level purpose is that which we set out to do, a personal decision without any regard to "recognition of true purpose", the things we purpose to happen when we know we have the ability and freedom to decide for ourselves, when we can purpose to do something without social and familial confines. I would consider this level to be the "exploration" level. We tend to rule out certain activities and roles that through exploration we conclude are not within our scope of personal purpose. Much of the purposing at this level is done on whim without concern for consequence. Purpose at this point is greatly influenced by peers and acquaintances. Those are the three basic levels of purpose after which there is a vast area of random purpose from which to choose or discover. In order to understand purpose one must first understand self. I stated in the earlier post, finding purpose is reliant upon individual understanding of self/ego and its relationship to the external. There may be a purpose amongst the repressed and undeveloped potentials in Jung's shadow concept. Purpose is about discovery of one's self and the recognition of personal desire and trait. The more we rule out purpose the closer we get to discovering our true purpose, the purpose that is part of our personal ideal, not one that is given to us by someone else. Purpose can be motivational or gravitational and for some adhere to spirituality. At this stage we start to realize that is was easier when someone just gave us purpose but because we are individualistic beings we have to have our "own" purpose Still there remains the question of needing purpose. Maybe we don't need to have purpose, we can just live and enjoy life, but that is what I see as becoming purpose itself, the purpose to just enjoy life. This is close to what I feel is the purpose in life, not to strive by all means to amass great wealth and surround oneself with gobs of materialism but to fulfill that yearning for happiness, simple joy. Each day for me is another opportunity to realize that purpose, of course much of my life has to do with the knowing of who I am and what I'm about. The important thing about having purpose is having direction and focus to achieve and bring it about, the fruition of purpose through intentional action. Finding purpose requires a great deal of soul searching, delving deep into your own psyche. Knowing what you don't like and what you don't want to do is a good step in eliminating much of the confusion. People waste years in what they thought was their purpose in life only to come to the realization that it was the wrong path for them. This reveals the importance of continual exploration and examination of the internal and the external world. To stop finding new purpose is like dying internally. As life changes and presents new circumstances, purpose all changes. Purpose is inextricably connected with age and physical ability and therefore your purpose today may not be your purpose tomorrow. While purpose can change, I think there are aspects of personal purpose that are constant, such as the purpose to teach or to heal. We may move about the planet and change lifestyle but we will always have that underlying constant purpose. People for some reason are always searching for purpose in life trying to find the answers to the why am I here questions. I have to conclude that I don't really know for sure and that is why each day I look for my daily purpose. On May 10, 8:25 pm, Liz <[email protected]> wrote: > Yes > > On May 8, 6:06 pm, Slip Disc <[email protected]> wrote: > > > You must be asking how one goes about finding purpose in their own > > personal life. Yes? No? > > > On May 8, 4:13 pm, Liz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > It's interesting that "purpose" for life is being talked about. How > > > would you find this for your life? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
