"There is no escaping reason; no denying purpose. Because as we both know, without purpose, we would not exist." -- Agent Smith (Matrix: Revolutions)
I had an epiphany tonight. For the longest time, I've always thought and felt that my purpose -- my meaning of life -- was set: to help people who needed help. I've come to realize that that is not the case.
I think my issue was that I had confused an observed need/demand in this world, with my ability/supply to fill it. That is: there are people in the world who need help, and I have the ability to help. But the kicker is that there are numerous needs/demands in this world, why pick the one that I did? The answer is simple: that was the one that was most glaring to me at the time. As I continue to age, and continue to experience life from different angles, the set of observed need/demand has increased, to a point where I've come to re-evaluate my ostensibly concrete purpose.
Although I no longer *think* this way, I still feel it -- this charitable, philanthropic feeling; despite all the new needs/demands I've come to observe in the world, none comes close with respect to the altruism contained in the first.
Heh, I *so* feel like Neo after he saw the Architect: lost and without clear purpose (now, all I need is to be able to zap lightning out from my fingers, :P). But in the end, our purpose is what we make of it, and we figure it out as we go along...
more thoughts about this to come...pertaining to:
- what I've done so far to reach my original purpose.
- Considering I've been working almost none-stop while graduating, the answer is almost a big fat 0.
- where I see myself in the not-too-distant future.
- Ha, working non-stop...
- crap....is *this* the pre-cursor to mid-life crisis?!??!!
...and so i\'ll "Be the first to add a comment"! :D ...if this is "mid-life crisis" then i\'m having one too i guess. Oh, what did you mean in "But the kicker is that there are numerous needs/demands in this world, why pick the one that I did?"? ^^
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant was, for a very long time, all I saw was "People are starving, they need food. People are homeless, they need shelter. People are being taken advantage of, they need protection." But what I see now that I didn\'t see before was "Companies need stuff (infrastructure, services, etc). Families need a steady income. People, in general, need gratification." So the main point of this entry, was now that the domain of identified needs have increased, how are my priorities to change?
ReplyDeletestupid MSN! I never got a notification of this comment. Now I\'m going to have to go through ALL of my material...
ReplyDelete