Do you have a sense of purpose? Whats your life like?

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I think for many people there is an idea that theres a set way to live, such as your supposed to grow up, learn to drive, work, get married and have children. I disagree with that. I dont want or need to drive right now, i probably wont get married and i dont want children.

My goal for a long time was to learn things and just try to improve upon things in the world. If i dont/cant do that though, what is my purpose? I used to think its bad to have a child without reason but my dad said its not like that and we must find our own purpose in life. Still though what is the point in me continuing to exist for no reason.

I wonder what is life like for you guys? Also i want to know from the older guys what keeps you alive. Do you have a sense of purpose? Also if any of you have children, why so?

Some people say that life means nothing but then again if thats so why do the vast majority of people have a sense of morality.

I have lots of questions lol.

I don't really have a "purpose" in living, per se.

I just want to enjoy myself and to do things morally right while I'm enjoying myself.

Do you get bored more though?

I get bored sometimes.

The solution, to me, is to seek to get rid of the boredom somehow.

I am usually able to find SOMETHING interesting.

If I don't, I just go to sleep.

Yes, I don't know why or what, but in the back of my mind I have an instinctual drive to do something. What that something is I don't know beyond surviving and having children. Death isn't going anywhere so might as well see to what end my life could lead.

There is no God and we are his prophets.

Life has much or little purpose depending on how much meaning the person puts into their own life. It comes from the inside not the wider world or it's norms.
All the standard tick box achievements are nice to attain, but they still don't give you a purpose, perhaps the exception being children. The small things/little details can become a collection that gives your life a deeper meaning, well, that's what I think anyway.

I see. I kinda agree with that.

The atoms that make up my body will never be in this configuration again, that is my purpose.

My main purpose in life is to solve problems. However, I do not have enough time in life to solve all of them (or sadly even most of them). That leads into a quandary on which ones to really concentrate upon sometimes.

No real purpose at the moment. My life goals have been shuffled, changed over the last 10.5 years, many of them having been abandoned due to ongoing health challenges.

I almost have the same goal as yours... Difference is that I want to spread such purpose to others as an option.
In other words, I show others an option, which in turn it's their choice to take. Whether they have a "purpose" or not.

Yet, even I do have this kind of choice of a purpose, I'm more or less waiting my time to run out than rushing on some deadline.


To me, A life 'purpose' itself is a choice, and not having one can be a choice too. Or even considering it as a purpose or not is a choice.
Some have more, some have less, and many have many choices and chances only to miss a lot of it out of ignorance, lacking of will, or fear of it's consequences of their choices either for themselves or for others.

I want to figure out new things where knowledge has run out.

I've saved people's lives, so that is my purpose, to be there for somebody in their hour of need. as Nietzsche said, "if a man has a why, he can bear almost any how."

I try to live life one day at a time. Just get through each day best I can and then on to the next.

When it comes to purpose, I like that movie called It's A Wonderful Life, where the man in finds out how much purpose he served without being aware of it.

This bugs me too, because I don't actually think there's a 'meaning' to our lives. As said above, we can give ourselves meaning, but it comes from ourselves. My purpose is probably to do with kids - I want to be a teacher and also want to have kids one day. I didn't always think that, but it's just an instinct I suppose. I just try to as much of what makes me happy as possible, and that serves as a purpose.

If people have such ideas, and are happy with them, I wouldn't disturb them. However, I too need to think more deeply about such matters (and I can't drive either). For me, it is not obvious that this is our purpose, I tend to have a rather mechanistic view of our universe and our role within it. By that, I mean that I believe that everything consists of atoms (or other tiny building blocks) which follows a strict set of laws.

Take the theory of evolution as an example, we're not here by coincidence, but we're not here because some higher power has set out a mission for us (at least that's what I believe). As such there may be no meaning. We're here due to natural selection, we're here because our genes are the ones that were most viable. However, one could argue that then this must be our purpose, to reproduce. And I do not have any good response to that so I suppose that may in a sense be true also. Moreover, when we die, if we get children, I suppose you can say that at least there's some organic matter of you living on, and as such, part of you lives forever (or at least till the destruction of our descendants' organic matter).

That is not to say that I think you should just have children and live your life without reflecting upon your choices, quite the contrary, this is just some possible reasoning.



I fully agree with you that you should not make such a major decisions as having kids "without reason". You also question the purpose of existence. Again, from a mechanistic view, the purpose of our lives is for the particles comprising _us_ to obey the laws of the universe. One can interpret from this that it renders all "higher" reasons to exist absent. (I myself have had struggles figuring out the meaning of existence). However, I do believe that one can also interpret from this that it gives us a certain freedom to choose the meaning for ourselves. That is, if I decide to do something, and does it, my purpose will be just that, since my particles must follow the laws of nature. As such, I think your father seems wise when he says that you must find your own purpose in life. I just made it more difficult for myself to reach the same conclusion as what many seems to just know.

If you can choose your own purpose, I think what you have already done previously seems like good goals, namely to learn things and try to improve upon the world (it's actually somewhat similar to my goals). That is, of course, presuming that learning gives you a certain sense of satisfaction and happiness in life (why would you _choose_ it as a goal otherwise?). On the other hand, if your current way of life makes you unhappy, I'd recommend trying to change your goals so that you become happy. Personally, I find life easier to bear when I just take small steps at a time and work with myself to try not to look too far ahead.



Actually, I'm recovering from some mental health problems now, and life starts getting great, again. I will probably always ponder such questions, but I've managed to have a very happy life before, and I've been getting back to it lately. Though I can tell you, that such questions will never reach definite conclusions. You can just weigh the arguments back and forth. Thinking much about deep questions may help you get to the right choices where you live a happy and peaceful life, but it is also a prerequisite for a bunch of mental troubles. I recommend a balance.

My goal is to learn stuff and to try to discover stuff, and I hope I will be able to contribute somehow to science (I'm a scientist). It would be unreasonable to expect that I discover something really great, but a tiny contribution into a tiny specific area of the vast body of human knowledge would be great. It is still a big goal and what keeps me motivated from day to day is the fascination about the small details I learn. Since I'm stuck in my office all day, I don't do many good deeds every day, like for instance a nurse would. But when I _am_ faced with the outside world, I will try to be nice and make sure that my presence does not make the world a worse place (hopefully a bit better).

By the way, I am almost 30 and happily married but without children. I'm uncertain about having children.



I fully agree with you that it is a dilemma when one claims life is meaningless but still holds on to morale. However, at times when I've seen no meaning in life, I've still not managed (nor even wanted to try) to let go of morale. I cannot explain that.

I have lots of questions lol.[/quote]

I hope I can help.