Copyright 2012, Randy Strauss, All Rights Reserved.
Purpose doesn't exist, like a thing. What's the purpose of a spoon? It has none, except that invented by its creator, or whoever picks it up, whether they use it to eat soup or tighten a screw. Purpose is invented.
Similarly, our lives have no intrinsic purpose. Some try to amass wealth, others to have sex. Some try to find love, others to convince people of their religion. Some try to enlarge human knowledge. Others try to contribute. These are all invented purposes.
Of course, some people think the purpose comes from outside themselves. But your parents, communities, books and cultures offered you many possibilities. You chose one, or some, or maybe none. Even if you think it came from God, you had choice of whether you accepted it. You chose whether you created it for yourself as your purpose. Some choose that their purpose is to long for and seek purpose.
What's true for me is that I give my life purpose. It's completely made up, created, invented. When I was a kid, I seemed to just "have" purposes. But when I look back, I can see where I picked them up, where I chose them and, often unconsciously, made them mine.
To me, my identity is invented, though often accidentally. I've intentionally remade parts of my personality. I made my family, my marriage, and my relationships with my kids. While it was often unintentional, I can see how my actions and inactions created them. I created my rolls at work. I created my projects.
I didn't make my toes or my eyes or my physique, but I see how my actions shaped their healthy. And I evaluate them and bestow meaning to them. I've discovered of late that I wholly create my experiences- my attitudes and emotions, not completely my thoughts or sensations but I interpret them and create their significance and meaning.
Like my purpose, my life is my invention. My life and I have all the purpose I want and need.
PS: As a starting point, there's the opportunity to have as one's purpose:
Being the space in which awareness, meaning, and intention arise.
There's also the question, Why live?