"And what exactly is happiness. I know of people who think that it is their duty to care for others, to spend time with the lonely because their parents and religion prescribe it. And yet they don't like it, they find it hard to do what they have to, their inner resources are exhausted in caring and responding to others and can find being on their own away from it all their only solace."
Perhaps because they never actually learned the lesson. I grew up in a religious home and ended up rejecting God by the time I turned 19 or 20. I never really had a relationship with God because all of that was forced onto me. I imagine if I ever come back to believing in God it will have to be done on my own accord. There is a concrete answer to the question of whether God is real or not and whether we should have a relationship with Him/Her. There are two answers at least: Yes or no. I believe the same about finding purpose. There are right and wrong answers here. I chose the wrong answer for many years and serving others, I feel, is a RIGHT answer.
Maybe some folks are not happy serving others because they don't understand the nature of it. They just do it because people tell them to. They never actually learned the lesson. For instance the thought of getting on a group call with a bunch of strangers to help answer writing questions used to make my skin crawl. Then I tried it, loved it, and have incorporated it into my life ever since.
Maybe service to others is not the only answer when trying to find purpose, but I believe there are right and wrong ways to seek purpose. So it's all up to us in your view? What about sitting in your room and doing heroin all day? Or beating your wife? Under your criteria for finding purpose, this would be totally fine if that's what that particular person wanted to do.
Yet it most certainly isn't a great way to live in the slightest. If you asked 100 drug addicts how purposeful their life felt and then asked 100 volunteers in the Peace Core the same question, I guarantee the people in the Peace Core would report a much higher quality of life and connection to purpose in this world.
I reject the idea that it's all up to us.
Wouldn't you agree there are wrong answers here? So if we can both agree there are WRONG answers, that must mean there are RIGHT answers in this question of finding purpose.
Would love your thoughts.
