Hey J***,
I was thinking what the purpose of life is lately. Knowing that I failed to see the real purpose of life (eternally) I am loosing direction and loose out of focus, not knowing what I am doing and what I wanted to achieve. This brings to a certain extent of frustration.
I understand that everything in life is short and the way to eternity of life is to up bring the good values within us and to put in practice with the fullest faith that we have for God. But when we tend to loose the purpose of having faith to God then is a problem cos we do not know why we need to have faith to God… is like having faith to God for nothing? This sounded terrible and you know what, it makes you feels terrible as well… (to make it even worse, makes you feel horrible)
Somehow sometimes we will have the tendency to have bad thoughts “out of nowhere”, it just comes so naturally which I do not want to. I am thinking how we can eliminate those evil thoughts in our mind so that we can live life wisely. (Bad/evil thoughts here referring to: self-centered, selfishness, jealousy, our bad habits etc…) Whenever I have those bad thoughts in mind, I will tend to tell myself to correct it from there, but the thing is how can I not to have those bad thoughts/bad habits in the very first place? So that I would not have those bad feelings to feel bad about myself being a bad person…?
How to become a wise person with a peaceful mind?
~*~
To all readers of my blog, please help me to answer ~ MJ
~*~
23/8/2006, here's my reply --
Before coming to my answer, I'm curious about why / how made you question about the purpose of life. You said you failed to see the real purpose life.. has this just happened or you've always not known the purpose of life from the beginning?
Did you had the answer before but overtime had forgotten about it? And now you're trying to search for it again?
First and foremost, my advise is for you to clear your mind or brain sponge. Its like its too full, like a teacup, so when you keep pouring water into it, it will overflow. Since we cant get a new brain, so we just have to empty the cup / brain.. and then pour new tea / info to drink / absorb.
All that there is for us to know / learn = knowledge... knowledge is power. Aside from gaining knowledge, there's influenced, brainwash mechanism from young that we cannot argue about.. eg. for my case, I do not believe in God the creator and even if I'm not 'brainwashed' by the Buddhist teachings, I dont see myself following the majority of earthlings believing in God.
That makes me unique when I answer "what is the purpose of life, if I dont believe in God?" - this answer may not be acceptable by people who's looking at the question from God-honouring perspective. Just like an apple left on the table, I can point to it and say "this is green" but another guy will point to it and say "this is fruit".. and another guy say "this is apple"... etc..
Does that mean there's no correct answer to what all these ppl are pointing at? I guess you'll agree that all answers are correct / acceptable. Probably a scientist will point to the object (apple) and say "its atom and molecules"... The more important point is - is it more important to determine what is this object (ie. apple) or eating the object and keeping your stomach full as its gettng really hungry.
I dont agree with self-centred = bad thoughts. Self-centred can be view in a positive form, where a person is SURE / confident of himself/herself. You dont find many people who are so self-assuring, who are confident to speak and live up to his/her principles that he/she so strongly believe in. *ahem* trying to talk abt me la.. or anybody u see around u, who do things their way... becos they know they're happy / enjoy / wont regret doing things their way.. as long as the way doesnt harm / hurt other people.
About jealousy, selfishness and even confusion... these are the 3 evil roots of all human beings. Also remember, got jealousy = got love, got selfishness= got generousity, got confusion = got wisdom. Point is, every human is born with these nature.. unless we're robot, but we're not we're human with feelings, perception, brain, 6 senses etc.. hence we're conditioned to the world around us...
The wiser you get through the years, the lesser the queries you'll ask in your mind... you can get more wisdom through reading and understanding. But for some ppl who cudnt read.. its best to start with the basic. Eg. before turnin pro runner, a baby must learn to crawl before can walk, before can run. Einstein said we're only using 10% of our brain capacity (ok whoever said that, try verify the source).. its true we're so lack of knowledge. But majority of people do not read nor understanding what is life. So what's the basics?!
The answer simply "just live life". In living your life, you try to cultivate goodness, by doing more good deeds and living a virtuous life. Eg. be more generous, give more, love animals, love family, love friends more, love plants, care for the people around us etc... these are very simple basics to teach anybody who's even illiterate. We cant teach our old grandparents how to read the bible / Buddhist books / einstein theory etc.. but we an encourage simple basic value of life for a living.
Have you heard of the phrase, "its not the destination, but its the journey that count". Smell the flowers along the journey to your destination. Breath in the air and smile that you're still alive today to breath. See the people / surrounding as you walk this journey... wow there's so much to talk about with this life journey.. is the destination important for you to worry about?
I can speak in more deeper level *ahem*, but hope this is apprehensive enuff for your digestion with tis email. It's not the end of the dscussion... its endless to begin with.
May I ask you - do you know what do you really want in life? *take your time.. dont have to answer immediately, it takes a life time for some ppl to find out the answer.. we'll see how long it takes for you to answer that :)*
...with warmest regards...
MJ
5 comments:
Don't have high expections, be grateful everyday and help out when you can. Then you will see the focus of your life and be back on track again.
Gosh.. if only I know who answered that so wisely. But it'll take sometime for me to answer this person wisely. I feel that if I dont have the time, then my shortcut answer will be, based on my Tshirt message 'The Purpose of Life is a Life of Purpose'.
It means alot if you understood what it really means. There's no way I can explain that in one sitting to my upm-chinese-speaking-friend, back in those day when I wore that shirt to class.
To live a life with meanings defined by you yourself, to have measurement system set by yourself, to have answers chosen by yourself. Is that considered being 'self-centred'? Im confident that my way of thinking doesn't make me a self-centred person by dictionary.
My vocal teacher once said "the centre of your life must be you".
Wait.. the point if talk about Purpose of Life... *phew.. i think I need a blog entry for this!
the purpose of life is to solve others problem while giving others problem
wah... ah Zan so wise.. anyway, i'll go with what I instintively believe, and what a few ppl had shared with me - that is to just simply live life.
Topic is now closed for discussion. Am still waiting for the person seeker the answer to reply to my 2 cents worth.
A wonderful story to share: Not a long piece though and it is worth reading! :)
He opened his wife's dresser drawer and picked up a silk paper wrapped
package:
"This, - he said - isn't any ordinary package."
He unwrapped the box and stared at both the silk paper and the box.
"She got this the first time we went to New York , 8 or 9 years ago. She
has never put it on , was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess
this is it. He got near the bed and placed the gift box next to the other
clothing he was taking to the funeral house, his wife had just died. He
turned to me and said:
"Never save something for a special occasion. Every day in your life is a
special occasion".
I still think those words changed my life.
Now I read more and clean less.
I sit on the porch without worrying about anything.
I spend more time with my family, and less at work.
I understood that life should be a source of experience to be lived up to,
not survived through. I no longer keep anything. I use crystal glasses
every day.. I'll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket, if I feel like
it.
I don't save my special perfume for special occasions, I use it whenever I
want to. The words "Someday..." and "One Day..." are fading away from my
dictionary. If it's worth seeing, listening or doing, I want to see, listen
or do it now. I don't know what my friend's wife would have done if she
knew she wouldn't be there the next morning, this nobody can tell. I think
she might have called her relatives and closest friends.
She might call old friends to make peace over past quarrels. I'd like to
think she would go out for Chinese, her favorite food. It's these small
things that I would regret not doing, if I knew my time had come.
I would regret it, because I would no longer see the friends I would meet,
letters... that I wanted to write
"One of these days".
I would regret and feel sad, because I didn't say to my brother and
sisters, son and daughters, not times enough at least, how much
I love them.
Now, I try not to delay, postpone or keep anything that could bring
laughter and joy into our lives..
And, on each morning, I say to myself that this could be a special day..
Each day, each hour, each minute, is special.
If you got this, it's because someone cares for you and because, there's
someone you care about.
If you're too busy to send this out to other people and you say to yourself
that you will send it " One of these days" , remember that "One day" is far
away... or might never come...
-THE END-
Wendy's Note:
If ever I were to know that Life is so short, why bother to complicate onself to think about the unknown, live at the present and live life to the fullest. A lot of times I guess we just taken a lot of things for granted, neglected some many beatiful events in life which we didn’t realized. Think about it, when comes to the end, family, friends & people around you is still the most important in our life, being able to make people around of you happy will eventually make yourself happy as well :) Is this not what we are looking for all the time along the way - eternal happiness?
Share the joy & happiness with everyone beside you to lighten up their day, I guess this is what the least I could do to make every single of my day meaningful and precious as for now :)
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