What Is The Purpose Of Your Life

One of the essential questions of our time here on earth is: "What's your purpose in life." It is a difficult question, too, as there are so many opinions on our purpose. But what if we look at all the people we know in life (past and present) and work on emulating their life, one day at a time. Might this perhaps be the essential purpose of our lives. (Please note, this is talk, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Purpose.

What is our purpose here?

This is probably one of the most difficult questions that we can ask of ourselves.

And once we start looking,

There are a plethora of answers out there in regard to what is our purpose here on earth.

We were born,

We have anywhere from a year to say 90 to 100 years to live.

What are we supposed to do with that time?

Does it matter?

We can turn to religions,

We can turn to philosophers,

We can turn towards people who think about this question and share their thoughts on it.

So you may be thinking,

Well Dr.

Puff,

Are you going to be one of those people to give us advice on what our purpose is?

Yes and no.

I want us to look at it and then I want us to think about what would be a good way to find purpose in our life.

Because I do think there are answers in regards to this question that can apply to all of us if we begin to really think about what is our purpose?

How do we live life well?

And that in many ways is the answer.

How do we live life well?

We live it well.

So that when we take our last breath and we're done with our life here on earth,

We can take that deep breath and say,

I lived well.

But the deeper question to ask ourselves is,

How do we do that?

How do we live life well?

Well if we have a religious bent,

Then I think we have something really good to grasp onto.

And that's not necessarily the philosophy or the tenets of the faith,

But more importantly the people that we look up to within our faith that we think are great examples of living life well.

Say we're a Christian,

We may turn towards Jesus or say St.

Francis as an example of how to live life well.

Or if we're Buddhist,

We might look to the Buddha or the Dalai Lama as a good example of how to live life well.

Let's say we're Islamic,

We might turn toward Muhammad.

Say,

How did he live his life?

How can we live our lives like he did?

Or if we're Hindu,

Perhaps we can look towards Rama or Krishna as examples of how to live our lives well.

But then let's say we don't have a lot of faith and we don't really believe in that.

But we probably know people in history that we can say,

They lived a good life.

I'm gonna try to emulate my life like their life went.

They had good purpose,

They did good things in life,

I like what they did.

And I think if I could emulate myself after them,

That would be a great way to find purpose in life.

Or we may know people throughout our own life that we live right now and say,

You know,

That's one of the most wonderful people I've ever met.

I'm gonna learn more about them and try to emulate my life like they live their life.

So whatever path we choose,

It's important to do the research to really look at the people or the examples in life or even the research that's being done on people that live life well and see what these people do.

Learn about them,

Study them,

Examine them,

Ask them questions if they're still alive,

Watch interviews with them and say,

Okay,

How did they live their life well?

How did they find really good purpose in their life?

So if you can get a hint of what I'm leaning towards,

Because it is ultimately going to be what I believe our purpose is in life,

Is that it's a life that's a good life,

A life that's filled with joy,

With happiness,

And an incredible ability to overcome struggles when they come.

But what will be most important is for you to find someone who you feel really is living a purposeful life and saying,

Okay,

I'm really gonna work towards being like them because the tendency is to do this.

The tendency is to say,

That's too hard,

That's idealistic,

They're one in a billion,

I can't be like them.

And in some cases that actually may be true.

I mean,

If you're trying to emulate say Jesus or Krishna or Buddha,

There weren't a lot of these type of people throughout history,

But nonetheless we can work towards being like them if that is our goal.

We have to study them,

We have to examine their lives,

We have to see what they did,

Because obviously these type of people had great purpose and in many ways they had beautiful lives.

And if we like the way they lived,

Then of course we can pick up on some of and perhaps many other habits.

And the longer we work at it,

You know what happens?

The better we're gonna get at it.

So the first thing we have to do is say,

Okay,

Who do I feel has a very purposeful life?

Is living a good life?

Who has lived a good life?

How can I learn more about them?

What did they do?

What traits did they adopt?

What boundaries did they set?

What things did they engage in?

What did they not engage with?

And then say,

How do I start being more like they are?

But again,

I just want to warn you,

There's a tendency to say,

Well that was them.

They're special.

They're one in a billion.

I can't do that.

We can adopt that philosophy.

And you know,

If we do,

We're correct.

We will not be like them.

What if instead we said,

You know,

I may never be quite like them,

Of course,

But I can behave more and more like them.

And if I do that,

If I really work towards working to act more like,

Say,

My grandmother or my grandfather who was this beautiful soul or this uncle that I had was that was marvelous or a professor that I knew that really made a difference in life and had such a wonderful purpose,

We can learn from them and grow from them and do our best to emulate them.

We have to decide what direction we're headed,

But once we find that direction,

Then we make it our goal.

We work towards it every day.

But I want to spend the remainder of this talk on what I believe our purpose is.

And you do not have to agree with me.

You can actually turn off this recording right now.

But I just want to share what I've learned and I think works as having a beautiful purpose for life.

I don't know if you ever saw the movie Groundhog Day.

I did a podcast on it once many years ago,

But it is my favorite movie.

And I think even though it's a silly movie,

It is a very accurate depiction of what our purpose here in life is.

Bill Murray as an actor is stuck in a loop.

He wakes up every morning on Groundhog Day and repeats it.

And no matter what he does,

The next day he repeats that same day.

And he keeps doing it over and over and over again.

He goes through a lot of phases.

One of hedonism,

One of self-destruction,

One of lust.

He goes through so many different phases.

And finally,

He just learns to live life well one day at a time.

He doesn't worry about the outcome.

He doesn't worry about whether it will make any difference.

He just lives life well one day at a time.

And then he wakes up.

And he never has to repeat this same Groundhog Day over and over again.

And I think what the message of this story is is that we need to live our lives well one day at a time.

And really well.

And each day when we wake up in the morning,

We take our first morning breath and we say,

I'm gonna live this day well.

And then we do that.

And the next day we wake up and we say,

I'm gonna live this day well.

And then we do it again.

Now the question may be,

But Dr.

Puff,

What does living life well mean?

What is our purpose?

Our purpose is to live well one day at a time.

Really well.

Now that can look very different to many people.

But I really believe this.

And this one may surprise you.

But I think when we get still,

When we're quiet,

We actually know exactly what it's like to live our lives well.

Because we're going to do one thing which is really important.

We're not going to care what anyone else does.

We're just going to 100% focus on what we do.

And how do we respond throughout the day to other people who do not react?

But how do we respond in loving and kind ways?

Because we love it when people are kind to us.

Particularly if we're having a bad day.

Isn't it wonderful when someone gently reaches out to us if we're having a bad day?

It's wonderful.

And then we say,

I'm gonna do that.

And don't we know what it's like when we watch those sunsets of life?

When we connect with deep friends,

When we have meaningful conversations,

When we help others,

When we do joyful things,

When we participate in the arts and music and things that are building us up,

When we work our bodies,

When we eat well.

All that together creates a beautiful day.

We all know what to do.

I actually believe that.

But sadly what we do is we fool ourselves.

We trick ourselves in the saying,

Not today,

Some other day.

Or it's too hard.

I can't do that.

Only other people out there can do that.

We come up with all these reasons that we can't live a good day today.

And the two big things that really keep us from living our lives well today are immediate gratification and delayed gratification.

These two catch us all the time and get us stuck in that vicious cycle.

For example,

You wake up and you know it's not the best day.

You're not feeling good.

You want to feel better.

And you know tonight when you come home,

If you have say,

You know,

Two bottles of wine,

You probably feel better.

You know it's not that good for you.

It would be better for you to go to the gym.

It might be better for you to do something else.

Drink a lot of water.

But it just sounds good to have that wine tonight.

I'll work on getting healthy tomorrow.

Immediate gratification.

That catches us all the time.

Almost everyone on the planet knows that eating lots of organic fruits and vegetables are so good for us.

So why do we eat unhealthy food so often?

Because it feels good right now.

We want to indulge.

Immediate gratification is so wonderful and at the same sense so dangerous.

If you ever watch the movie Groundhog Day,

I think three-fourths of his time is spent on immediate gratification.

He just wants to feel good now and makes terrible choices because of that.

But the other extreme is delayed gratification.

I'm going to work really hard so I can make a lot of money so someday I can live life well.

That's a dangerous slope too.

We all know people that end up reaching their goals and are absolutely miserable.

They're miserable in the process of getting there and then when they reach their goal they get squat for it or very little.

It's a very vicious cycle.

We all know people like that and I often think throughout life it's between these two poles.

Immediate gratification and delayed gratification that we spend our life not living well,

Not living our purpose.

Because if we lived our purpose we would say,

Okay today what could I do today to one make my heart happy and two make other people's lives happy.

Not in the future and not just about all about what I want but about what could I do to help myself and help others and find that when I put my head down at the end of the day I could say that was a good day.

And you also know what can be really helpful?

It goes back to so many deep thinkers.

The Buddha said it.

Jesus said it.

Confucius said it.

Pretty much anyone who's wise has said this.

It's the golden rule.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

That's how we know how to navigate our lives.

Am I treating others like I want to be treated?

Am I loving others like I want to be loved?

Am I helping others like I want to be helped?

And am I loving myself like I want others to love me?

It's such a wise rule to live by that if we don't know what to do the golden rule is a beautiful rule to lean upon.

But before we end I want to give us some really tangible tools that we can use every day to lean upon.

Again remember the first thing is find people that you like that have good purpose in life that you look up to and learn about them.

Study them.

I don't mean they're successful.

I don't mean they're famous but they are like good people.

People that you would say I love this person.

He or she is so awesome.

Not because what they've achieved but because of who they are.

Start with that.

Don't put up with they're very successful but they're a jerk.

Find someone who's kind.

Find someone who you really say this is a great person and learn about them.

Study them.

If they're alive meet them.

Talk to them.

And then the second thing is focus on it one day at a time.

This is a secret sauce of living our purpose as well.

Not what am I going to do for the rest of my life.

Not what am I going to do next year.

When I wake up in the morning what am I going to do today to live a purposeful life today?

And when we do that it's so simple.

It's so easy and it's not overwhelming and we can do little things to make it better.

We won't do it perfectly of course not but we can keep every day we wake up making improvements and what we'll find is we will keep getting better.

We will find more and more purpose in our lives and when we put our head down at the end of the day if it is the last day of our life and we wake up on the other side in heaven we'll say that was that was a good life.

Or if we just end our life and it's over we'll say that was a good life.

And I think this is a very good way to live our lives with purpose but purpose is found in the here and now.

Purpose is found today.

So may we all seek purpose in our life when we wake up tomorrow and work diligently,

Work well,

Work joyfully at finding purpose,

Beauty,

And love in our lives.

So at the end of the day when we put our head down on that pillow we say that was a good day.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Excellent message!
Thank you for your perspective Dr Puff.

Thank you Dr. Puff. Food for thought.

Thank you 🙏

Great!!!🙏👋👍🤗