What is our Purpose in Life?

~ Alok Singhal

Most of us are not even sure where we are heading in our lives. In fact, it is a constant struggle for almost each of us trying to figure out “What exactly do I want to do with my life?”

The truth is we all want to do something important in our lives, but then what exactly is that ‘something important’ is a bit hazy for most of us. After thinking through, it all boils down to making the best use of time that we have in our lives.

To help clarify the doubts, there are a few questions we can ask ourselves, which can define the purpose of our lives a bit more clearly.

  1. Can we handle the tough times?

Some of us want to make it big in our lives, but that requires navigating through the tough times, which most of us are uncomfortable with. But then things are not rosy all the times, there is some sort of cost or sacrifice associated with each and everything important that we want to do. For e.g. If we want to be a successful entrepreneur, but we can’t handle failures, then our goal itself is a big question-mark for us. If we want to make it big, we need to be comfortable with the ups and downs that come with it.

  1. What is that the child in us wants us to do?

We all loved to do something when we were kids. But somehow have lost touch with all that may be because of social pressures or professional obligations. This essentially means we are not doing what we wanted to do with the innocence we had earlier. To me, that is an important aspect of enjoyment in life. For e.g. it wasn’t until recently that I rediscovered how much I loved writing. And I started this blog — something I did in my early teens, because I enjoyed it.

  1. What is our real passion?

One might say I love anchoring the shows, which even I used to do not so long ago. But the real passion is not that, it is actually the improvement behind it, being good at connecting with others and may be making them laugh or just entertaining them. The anchoring itself is just one aspect, but i can easily live without it since it’s the improvement behind it that matters to me.

So we all need to find our passion. It might be anything, but we need to really look at the cognitive principles behind those activities; because if we do so, we can easily apply the underlying concepts elsewhere.

  1. Is our embarrassment holding us down?

Great things are, by their very nature, unique and unconventional. Therefore, to achieve them, we might have to go against the herd mentality. But most of us feel scared of being singled-out and may be afraid of losing some friends. Unfortunately, sometimes we can only make headway towards the wishes we have by treading the lonely path. It might be embarrassing and scary, but then that is the only way.

  1. If we knew we are going to die one year from today, what would we do and how we want to be remembered?

Most of us are so afraid of thinking about death that it freaks us out. But that is the only certain thing in our lives. In fact, thinking about our own death surprisingly has a lot of practical advantages. One of those advantages is that it forces us to zero in on what’s actually important in our lives and what’s just frivolous and distracting. Think about if you had only one year to live, what you would like to achieve and many things will automatically fall in place.

We can add a few more such questions to the list, but ultimately the goal is to be clear on these points ourselves. Once we do that, we are going to come out of the haze we find difficult to cross. That’s what will lead us to our purpose in life.

57 thoughts on “What is our Purpose in Life?”

  6. Its a nice write up Alok. As the saying goes ‘Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backwards’. So planning backwards is an approach recommended by many, as it helps us to figure out what exactly we want from life and live with that purpose in mind.

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  11. Good post Alok. Sometimes, pausing and re-discovering self is important and will guide us in the future. Asking ourselves difficult questions is a good idea.

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  19. Death is the only thing certain. Living is too right?
    Speaking of improvement as you pointed, well nothing is easy, everything and anything needs efforts and contant work upon it, be it progress or relationships. I think that would be the fundamental purpose? 🙂

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    1. Well, not everybody gets to live…think about an unborn who doesn’t get to see the world sometimes.
      Yes, everything important requires an effort, some sort of sacrifice as I mentioned.

      Thanks so much for a generous comment 😊

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  21. You know Alok? In case I die tomorrow or one year from now, I have no regrets. I have written my heart out for my son and he can read it ( if he chooses to) even after I am gone. Am sure, he would understand that he had a loving and caring dad.

    You are true, that most of us are not aware, where we are heading towards to. Only we introspect and ask those questions to ourselves and if we try jotting it down, it becomes crystal clear.

    The questions which you have framed above are very correct and I fully vouch for it.

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    1. Well, this is generic statements…what exactly makes you happy? That’s what you should be doing…we all need to be clear on that. Else it is still hazy 😀

      Hope you are getting my point?

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  26. Astute post with very important questions… sometimes we think we want something, but we really aren’t prepared or even interested to handle what comes with it. I can say I had to answer every one of those questions to myself on my path to get me where I want to be. It takes some owrk and soul searching, but it’s definitely worth it!

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    1. Good that you’ve been cognizant of and working on these questions all along…so you are well on your way to realizing your purpose in life 🙂

      Thank you for inputs.

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