Do you have purpose in your life?

Hilda I think most us have days when we are "gloomy", I certainly do. I try to enjoy my life as much as I can on the other days!
I don't feel the need for a purpose,I would just like to get through the rest of my life without being a burden to anyone, and without worrying myself to death!

'Yes the only measure of your words and your deeds
Will be the love you leave behind when you're done'

Words of a Roy Baily song and think it is not a bad thought!

nanaej

"What is the purpose of life?" is perhaps a different question from "Do you have a purpose in your life?"

The first is a philosophical question to which I believe there really is no answer, along with most of the other big questions - and accepting that is one of the keys to happiness.

But the other question does I think have an answer - and it is a different one for each person. For me it is to enjoy myself as much as I can and make it possible (as far as I am able) for others around me to enjoy themselves.

I am sorry HildaW that you are finding things hard at the moment. Shyness and being " too darn sensitive" are two aspects of the same problem - which is worrying too much what others think of us. I think that retirement should be a time when we try to stop worrying about that and do our own thing and be ourselves - if we can't do it now, we never will! You sound quite gloomy at the moment and that can get into a spiral - very hard to see good things when you are feeling like that. Is the GP sympathetic? Maybe a little bit of chemical help to get over the hurdle of the negative thinking and set you on the right road? Or buy a CBT manual (there is one called "CBT for Dummies") - CBT is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, in case you are not familiar with it - it helps us to recognise and reassess our ingrained patterns of thought and to see that some might be having a negative effect - it also helps us to escape from that pattern. It has a very good track record for helping people to jump off the wheel and live a bit!

My purpose is life?Too enjoy it I suppose. I have a wonderful son and DIL with two lovely little GD's who I adore. I have a wonderful daughter who is a great friend and loads of fun. I have good friends and a job I enjoy. As soon as it stops raining so much and starts acting like summer I might cheer up bit. I'm getting cabin fever. So my purpose is to look after my health so I can enjoy the years I have left, quite a few I hope, also to be of some use to my family.

If your life has a purpose, at what point in life would you expect to attain that purpose?

I mean, at what point is it ok to say, "Whoops. Didn't make it", and relax, sit back, and join the Sod It! Club?

Well, most people that do truly great things seem to do so before the age of thirty. So, perhaps I should have said 'sod it' thirty years ago. Damned annoyed that I didn't read this then cause it would have saved me thirty years . Everyone in my family seem to be obsessed with property; buying it and doing it up....even I seem to be caught in this trap of my own making, as a friend once said 'we are all slaves to our homes'. I wonder if, in Europe where [or so I understand] more people rent property than buy it, there is a different attitiude? I have set myself till the middle of August to turn my house round so I can enjoy it for a bit before I think about downsizing.

jo4
<< the Sod It! Club? >>
You've cheered me up.

Although I sometimes feel overloaded and complain, I think the help I give to various family members provides structure and meaning and a sense of satisfaction in my life.

Apart from that I think trying to enjoy my life, living it in a beneficial way and developing strengths to enable me to cope with any adversity that comes my way in what I try to do.

At a trivial level, I get into little projects which make life meaningful. Last year I became obsessed with knitting dolls and dressing them to represent the people I was giving them to (not as spooky as it sounds, they were good luck dolls). I must have done sixty at least. At the moment it's trying to develop my inner gardener and finding ways to change my diet to get rid of stomach bloat.

I have found many of the comments on this thread to be a comfort and an inspiration.

jingl you'd have to know what your purpose in life was before you could safely say you hadn't achieved it. I suppose you could say 'sod it' anyway - I really don't see how you can know what the purpose of your life has been until you're at the end of it anyway!
But that's different to 'having a purpose', isn't it?

I like the sound of that jingle can I join

All welcome Glass.

And johanna!

Gosh; I have just realised that I've spent most of my life on a diet, so, perhaps my raison d'etre is to get thin, then fat, then thin, then fat......

Anyone know the Desiderata poem? That sort of tells you not to expect too much of yourself, and I quite like that idea, because I sometimes think we feel we 'ought' to be doing something useful, when really, all we need to do is just nothing, so that we can enjoy what we have. That again sounds a bit 'pious', but so what it works for me, and it is a really good excuse for not doing the things I 'ought' to be doing.

Desiderata

for PRINTMISS

We do set ourselves a lot of rules, don't we? Especially now, when no-one else is making them for me, I'm always thinking "I ought to.." If I'm making them, then I can break them!

(And I'm already adding the proviso "providing it doesn't hurt anyone...")

crimson - that about sums me up too!

To achieve something and make a difference. At present all sorts of things come at me just like one of those games where you try to avoid being bowled over or knocked out. My life's quite stressful as there's lots of things going on both at work and in the family and I often don't feel 100% but I make lists and set targets and try to make the most of interesting opportunities that come my way which are sometimes quite challenging.

I feel quite selfish because even though my children and grandchildren are THE MOST BELOVED people in my life (apart from my DH who is naturally included in that) my world doesn't revolve around them. When I retired abroad, I set out to fill my days with the things I'd always wanted to do when I was a working mother and housewife. So I play tennis, golf and bridge and sing in a choir(all very sociable hobbies). I'm enjoying gardening and I'm now able to follow the dream I had when I left school, which was to be a painter. My father had insisted I train for a 'proper' job so I did just that, then married at 19 and started my family at 21. 10 years later my first marriage broke up and I became the breadwinner. When I remarried, we had four children between us, so work remained a necessity. Now, we expect our children to manage their lives independently of us, which they do. We love them, we think of them, we help as and when required and retain weekly contact, but our lives are now ours to live. They have all said they appreciate that we are not needy and demanding with them. I sometimes feel guilty that I'm not there for them when needed in practical terms, but then they won't be there for me either when I go ga-ga. If you have read what is happening in my family at the moment on another thread, this is an occasion when I wish I had my own private plane! C'est la vie!

Expressing myself in my last post set me thinking more deeply..I was wrong to say that my 'world' doesn't revolve around my family - it actually does. But my 'day to day existence' doesn't. That's the difference. It's been brought home to me vividly during the past few weeks that my family's happiness is an essential part of my own well-being. When any of them are hurting, then the joie de vivre goes out of my life. But I can't make them my 'purpose' at this stage of my life - the best analogy I can muster is that they're like a kettle murmuring gently on the hob. The time to get involved is when the gentle murmuring changes in any way.

Hope this is not too deep - I've had another restless night worrying about my son and I've been fully awake since 4.30am. But today I'll probably do a bit more of my current painting and I'll go to my friend's 60th birthday lunch and I'll enjoy both. That's all.

specki4eyes Not many miles away from you I too have been awake since 4.30. This time not worrying about my family. Just couldn't sleep. Something that has been a problem for me since I was widowed nearly two years ago now.

My half-sister who is a bereavement counsillor asked me a little while ago what now was my purpose or plan for my life. I was just as stumped as many of the posters on this topic. I have great sympathy with your view of life and I suppose affinity with it. Have a lovely birthday lunch and I hope that getting up early might actually help your creativity with your painting.

Thank you flower - still looking forward to our lunch, BTW..see you in the autumn.

My purpose is to do my absolute best to support those I love through the worst of times and celebrate with them at the best of times. Sometimes, the people I love are neither close family members or even friends. I have the same need to comfort total strangers. Am I strange?

No, you're sooper