Wednesday, December 28, 2005

thoughts about life

Lately I’ve been thinking about how the purpose of life can’t really be explained. A love for living can be found while doing any activity, provided that we are approaching the activity in the right way. In other words, the joy isn't really found in the activity, but in our freedom to act. We are free to choose to act however we want within the circumstances we are born into. I’d say that finding joy in that freedom is all the purpose that life really needs. Here are a few other thoughts I had about this subject:

It’s okay to be motivated by fame and glory. It’s just as okay to want to play Nintendo all your life. If that’s what makes you feel alive, then they’re both great ways to spend your time. But understand that dedicating yourself to a life of selflessness and serving others is in no way inherently different than dedicating yourself to say basketball or boxing. They both could bring earthly fame, and they both could help better the circumstances that others face.

But in the end, doesn’t it seem a little trivial to just care about basketball? Doesn’t our ability to create relationships with other people just seem to be on a higher level than loving to play basketball, or loving to do any other activity for that matter? But does loving others really just mean selflessness and serving them? Isn’t it more important to share in the joy of life with them?

Sharing in the joy of life can be done through any activity. The type of activity we choose to do may have an effect on the circumstances that others face. We can perhaps give them more time to live, better places to live, more political freedom, etc., but these are all just circumstances, and change nothing about the actual individuals. Changing these circumstances may bring us fame and the admiration of many, and that’s great. But experiencing the joy of life involves the approach we take towards our activities and has nothing to do with the type of activities we choose.

The truth is that all motivation, in some way, should be about sharing in the joy of life. Seek out that joy, that freedom to make your own choice about the situations that you face; and when you find it, you won’t be able stop yourself from wanting to share that joy and freedom with others. The two things are mutually inclusive: the joy in life can’t exist without the desire to share it. Likewise, in order to share that joy, you must first experience it in your own life. Our mistake is that we try to force the activities we have chosen to do on others and ridicule them for not choosing the same way as us. Sharing something never involves forcing it on someone else. Sharing in the joy of an activity means each person has freely chosen to do that activity because he finds it interesting and relevant to his life.