I recently had a conversation with a friend who is about to be a grandmother for the first time.
She confessed to me that now her son was married and about to be a father she felt lost and didn’t feel she had a purpose any more.
I found this a really interesting conversation and what it raised for me is that for many people their sense of self is tied very much to a role in life – father, mother, wife, husband. We also have a tendency to be identified by the job we do, or the things we own.
The notion that we have to have a role or purpose is ingrained into us and probably has been for ever. I think many of us ask questions about the meaning of life and perhaps are left with a sense of emptiness if we can’t answer it. Even worse is a sense of failure or hopelessness if our own achievements don’t meet our own expectations or the expectations of others.
How many of us have achieved something and then discovered that the achievement felt hollow or anti-climactic?
A question popped into my head during the conversation – do we actually need a purpose in life? In fact, does life have to have a particular meaning?
As a secular humanist I don’t think life itself has meaning but I do think life can be meaningful.
As humans we have the ability to imagine things and create things and to observe our entire universe. That is something to be cherished.
At its simplest, perhaps human life can be seen as an experience. Something to be grateful for as it gives us the opportunity to see beyond mere survival or procreation.
Maybe our personal purpose can be to experiment, to question, to gain knowledge, to have a sense of wonder about our own lives, our civilisation, the planet we live on or even the universe, simply because those things are interesting.
Maybe a purpose is to be creative, to engage with other people, to laugh, to share. Whether it’s cooking a meal or having a conversation. Whatever it is maybe just being grateful and connected to life is enough.
The person I mentioned earlier is one of the most accomplished people I know. She is an autodidact who has gained so many skills by simply learning about things she’s interested in. She’s kind, she’s generous and she’s incredibly creative. Over the decades I’ve known her she’s accomplished so much and most of it has been self-taught.
I mentioned this to her and initially she seemed reluctant to accept what I was saying. That to me is the fundamental problem for many of us, we can’t evaluate ourselves objectively. What seems ordinary or mundane to us can look extraordinary to someone else.
Perhaps in our own lives what we need to do is actually look at ourselves with compassion. We can acknowledge our weaknesses but not let them define us. And then we can also look at our strengths and our achievements honestly. We don’t need to brag or be arrogant about them. We can simply acknowledge them and appreciate them.
Our purpose is anything we want it to be. It could simply be choosing to live fully and experience as much as we can. We don’t need to define ourselves in a particular role or put pressure on ourselves to leave a legacy. Meaningfulness can come from taking a breath or hugging someone, or watching a sunset and simply appreciating it for its beauty.
