I was in a blue study earlier, trying to figure out why there is evil in the world and why there is not some big force that takes it out of commission. Through a convoluted series of meandering thoughts, I then wondered what my role is in all this (the evil in the world, the healing of the world, all the stuff that has consumed us since 9/11). I don’t know what the hell I’m here for. I mean, not everyone has to have a purpose, I suppose… but I don’t want to be a meaningless collection of atoms.
So what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to do some good in the world? Is it my son–am I supposed to just raise him not to hate, to be someone who wants to do good in the world and a be a decent soul? Is there more? Shouldn’t there be more? Why are any of us here? What am I supposed to be doing? What part do I play in the betterment of the world? Is this going to be revealed to me, or do I just decide to play a bigger role? I mean, what the hell? Sure, I volunteer and stuff, but what a drop in the bucket. 99% of what I do is just self-centered, focused on my family, my self, my friends. That’s hardly inspiring to the world at large, even if I do it with my whole heart.
Anyone else consumed with these thoughts, either due to the events of 9/11 or completely independent of them?
In the past, many humans were born into a role not of their choosing. Today, many of us are free to choose our role on this planet. A select few dreamers have proven that humans can even choose a role soaring above the Earth, or (recently) even in space.
The ambitious among us will strive to better our society and better the world. Some of us fight hard to preserve these freedoms and repay the favor bestowed by our forebears.
In short, if you are blessed by this age and your birth circumstance with the freedom to choose your role, it is ultimately whatever you decide it to be. The sky is no longer the limit.
A nifty time-management thought experiment about this kind of thing that I recently ran across:
Imagine you come into the knowledge that you will die in precisely five years’ time. (For the purposes of the exercise, no, there’s nothing you can do about that. Your number’s up at that point, period. No exceptions.) With that knowledge, ask yourself what three things you want to accomplish in that time. Schedule doing them.
Phase two, you have a year to live. Again, pick three things. Schedule them.
Phase three, you now have three months. What three things do you want to accomplish in the time left to you?
That sort of thing is never likely to trigger a lightbulb flash, a “by gum, yes! THAT’s my purpose!” moment. It should give a person a dandy idea of what to start doing, however, and another idea of how to go about starting to.
As a mild bit of witnessing, I think the world speaks to people all the time. We’re just very adept at blocking it out. Do good, love, and bit by bit things get clearer.
That bit by bit part seems awfully slow sometimes. Patience is one of the hardest virtues.
I’ve wondered this a lot, throughout my life. The only thing I’ve been able to figure out is that if I didn’t have a purpose, I wouldn’t be here.
Maybe I’ve fulfilled my role. I have an older daughter that I relinquished for adoption at her birth. Maybe bringing her into the world was my purpose. Maybe she, or one of her descendants, will be the one that discovers the cure for cancer.
Maybe that car accident I was in when I was 24 was my purpose. I wasn’t injured, and neither was the elderly gentleman who hit me. But he was having some sort of diabetic reaction at the time of the accident. Maybe I pulled out in front of him, thus allowing him to hit me, thus preventing him from driving further down the road and killing hiself or someone else.
Or maybe I’m living my role now. My stepson is living with us right now, because his mom can’t provide for him right now. Maybe my role is to see him through this difficult time in his life.
Maybe I haven’t fulfilled my role yet. Who knows? I always wanted to have a George Bailey-type experience, but without the suicidal thoughts.
I personally don’t believe anyone is without purpose. Sometimes it’s small, sometimes it’s large, but everyone has a role. Most of us never find out while we’re living just what that role is, but I do believe that everyone has a purpose.
I don’t know that it’s so much a process of finding one’s role as it is a dawning realization that one’s role cannot be denied. The scales falling from Paul’s eyes, Sidhartha’s observation of old man/dead man/monk; that sort of thing.
Ah Cranky, you’re going to drive us all crazy with all this introspection one day.
You’re not alone in wondering these things. I thought about them all long before 9/11. I used to think I wasn’t doing “enough.” But the conclusion I eventually reached was, even if you only change one person, you are still changing the world. So, change yourself, change your family, or change your neighbor (hopefully not against his will :)) Most of us just don’t have the means to do much beyond this. Living a good life is commendable, no matter where you are.
That doesn’t mean you can’t be self-fulfilled at the same time, too. I went into Journalism for altruistic reasons. Nowadays, I think maybe I could do more good as a role model by being a high school teacher or something. But I would also enjoy teaching more. Either way, I’m not just gratifying myself.
As for how you should raise your kid, i think you hit the nail right on the head. That’s all you can (and more importantly should) do. He must choose a higher road on his own. It’s not something that can be forced on anyone.
As for why there is evil in the world, I think the answer is because mankind is continually creating it. (9/11 being a perfect example.) Why doesn’t some higher force just “put it out of commission”? I think it’s for the same reason that the Government can’t arrest you for calling the President a dishonest asshole. Can you really say that you have free will if some options are curtailed? Certain people have chosen evil. (According to the Bible, Mankind as a whole has chosen evil) Whether you believe the Bible’s version or not, either way, people exercising their free will are responsible for the way the world is today. Is that unfair to those who have not chosen to do evil like the others? Sure. But from an outside, completely amoral and objective observer’s standpoint, who is to say whose free will should hold sway-those of us who wish good, or those who wish to do evil?
I think questions like these are the reason we have religion. For further soliloquies on this, please consult the nearest priest/rabbi/preacher/mullah. Lizard, exiting stage left.
If there were no evil, there’d be no good, then nothing would exist.
It’s my opinion (oh my God, in IMHO no less) that none of us have a “role” to play. We do whatever it is we think we should be doing, typically something we’ve found that we’re good at, then we die. End of story. No heaven, no hell, no nothing. You say that a lot of what you’ve done is self-centered. Not necessarily, since when you touch one life, that person goes on to touch another’s life, and so on. It’s a cycle that doesn’t get initiated often enough, and we hope that once it starts it never ends.
I find it hard to imagine doing anything that is 100% selfless.
Everything you do to help others or change the world into a better place is also done because you feel good about doing it. You feel like you’ve achieved something, it gives you pleasure to aid others. Selfish. therefore - to do such things for your own enjoyment - even if it is shared enjoyment.
Love is the most selfish emotion there is - yet it is also the most selfless.
Funny that.
Anyways, there are no purposes to anybody’s existence - for purpose suggests destiny, suggests predisposition, suggests some higher power directing events. Which is, most assuredly, not so.
You know, when I think of the people who’ve influenced my decisions, most of them have no idea.
We go through our lives touching other people and affecting what they become and we never even realize most of it. Collectively, that’s what shapes the world, right?
I feel that each life has its own specific spiritual lesson to learn, and that the lesson is unknown to us throughout most of our lives. Some of us learn what it is and progress rapidly towards achieving that goal, while others try to progress in general and make a success of themselves without being a negative reaction for all those around them. Well, at least that’s the good way of going about things in my mind. Bringing people down who did no wrong just to make yourself “better” is kind of going against the goal of learning the spiritual lesson for that lifetime, and, in my mind, so is just giving and giving and getting nowhere while being treated like a doormat. So far I’ve figured out what I want out of my spiritual life, now I’m working on finding what career will make me happy and fullfilled and will make me feel like I am making progress in life.
