How Purpose Lends Meaning to Life
We don’t discover meaning, we create it
We often use the words ‘purpose’ and 'meaning’ interchangeably while talking about life.
Life has meaning when there’s a purpose.
Purpose is the tool to achieve meaning in life.
The definition of a meaningful life can be subjective. A selfish person who only cares for their needs and personal growth may view their life as meaningful.
Self-care and personal advancement are important. They are our birthrights and moral obligations. However, to acquire meaning, our lives will have to outgrow ourselves.
Universally, a meaningful life is a life of service. We’re born to serve others, a fact that is not obvious in our struggle for existence.
Moral and material progress happens when people transcend their narrow interests and contribute to a larger cause.
Life has meaning:
- When it has a purpose.
- When the purpose makes a contribution to society.
“What’s the purpose of life?” is a question we struggle to answer. The fact is, we all have a purpose, even if we are not consciously aware of it.
A purpose doesn’t have to be a grand ideal that will change the world. It can be as simple as being kind and non-judgmental. We make a contribution to society when we treat others kindly because people carry good vibes in their hearts and pay it forward in their lives.
A homemaker who raises kids and maintains the home has a purpose—to build a stable and peaceful home. She doesn’t realise the importance of her work or the meaning of her life. Her contribution to society is raising secure, confident, and well-behaved children who later become responsible citizens and contributors to human progress.
The life of an elementary school teacher has meaning because she imparts basic knowledge to children that becomes the building blocks of their personal growth.
A municipal worker who cleans the streets and public toilets, a fireman or a policeman, a surgeon, a pilot, a religious preacher, an animal welfare activist all lead meaningful lives. Their purpose in life is to do their job to the best of their ability.
“Living purposefully requires self-reflection and self-knowledge. Each of us has different strengths, talents, insights, and experiences that shape who we are. And so, each of us will have a different purpose, one that fits our identity.”(Emily Esfahani Smith, The Power of Meaning: The True Route to Happiness
Any person, working at any job, can make a contribution to the world if they adopt a service mindset.
When President John F. Kennedy visited NASA in 1962, he met a janitor. When Kennedy asked him what he was doing, the janitor said he was “helping put a man on the moon.”
Emily Esfahani Smith refers to this wonderful passage from George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch:
“ The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisted tombs.”
If I asked my wife, “What is your life’s purpose?”, she would probably answer, “It’s teaching physics to students who lack basic knowledge about the subject.”
She has been teaching physics for the past three decades. She earned good money but derived great satisfaction in helping hundreds of average students grasp the subject. She will patiently clear all their doubts. She never scolded them for asking silly questions. They will mob her whenever she sits in the library to help them.
Many of her students went on to hold successful jobs like teachers, surgeons, and pilots. She made a small contribution to the world using her talent as a teacher.
We all can make our lives meaningful by using our skills, knowledge, capacities, and experience to serve society to the best of our ability and by aligning whatever we do with our values and principles.
If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.(the daily.coach)
If we are confused about what our purpose is, let’s reframe what we do as an opportunity to serve the world.
There’s no such thing as a trivial or insignificant job that serves a larger cause.
We don’t discover meaning in life; we create it through purposeful living, though hidden from the world.
Whatever we do becomes our calling when we infuse it with a purpose.
Service is its own reward, and we don’t need the world to certify our lives as meaningful.
Thanks for reading.
