This is one of the most profound and debated questions in human history. The complexity arises from the ever-evolving nature of human psychology and philosophy, as our understanding of the mind, values, and existence continues to change over time. For those who don’t know Psychology is the branch of science that deals with human mind and behavior, all in all here students try to understand the reason why humans behave in certain ways. On the other hand, Philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, and reality. It attempts to understand and explain concepts such as life, truth, morality, and even the nature of death — not through experiments, but through logical reasoning and critical thinking.
Let’s understand this with an example, during the ancient time the purpose of life in many civilizations was to live in harmony with the nature and secure food, shelter and protection. Now in modern times when we have food security and protection from natural threats like wild animals, our focus has shifted to Pursuing personal goals, dreams, and passions, in a sense the focus shifted to self-satisfaction and self-gain. For those who are stilled trapped in fight for food and shelter they are still trapped in maintaining that balance.
Now after understanding the basics, when we return back to the same question, we can say that purpose of life depends on two factors-
- Psychological factor- This can also be called as internal factor because these are not common to all, they vary from person to person. This includes conditions like personal behavior and social and economic condition of a person. If a person is economically strong and socially more acceptable, they are freer to take their decision. Personal behavior, on the other hand, influences the stability and consistency of our decisions.
- Philosophical factor – This can also be called external factor because these are social and cultural ideas that impacts the mind and decision making of people. These have a common impact on large section of society. For example, if we observe in India getting a government job is the major objective of most of the students, whereas in countries like USA people are mostly involved in some kind of business activities. These differences are due to the variations in ideas related to life.
Most of our life related decisions are guided by these two factors, but in some cases, we see that people break these boundaries and they are able to do this because of their personal behavior. They are able to dominate other factors because of their strong decision-making power which is one of the aspects of our personal behavior.
Coming back to our question, as the above two factors will vary for each and every person it is hard to give a common purpose for all the people. But we can keep certain conditions in mind before deciding our goals. The conditions mentioned below will also work as a checklist to help you decide your purpose.
- Always take decisions based on your own conditions not on the basis of what others are planning and doing this will never satisfy you because someone else is the center of your decision making.
- Before taking a decision for a purpose, think of things you are ready to give up to meet that purpose, because noting is free in this world, the more you are ready to lose the more potential you create to gain your purpose. If you feel like you cannot make necessary sacrifices for your purpose then change your purpose.
- Have a clear idea about what you want to achieve with your purpose, without this clarity most of us keeps on shifting our expectations and purpose. This will end up no where and you will remain purposeless.
- Once decided keep moving don’t think about gains and losses. These are temporary and part of life. At times even victory feels like defeat but don’t allow conditions to rule you.
- More than personal gains keep service as the motive because human satisfaction is very temporary, service is more permanent in nature. This will keep you moving even during lowest period of your life.