Just day before I was chatting up with my friend and he was quite frustrated with doing his job each day 9 to 7 and wanted to do something more meaningful in life. But the questions where is the meaning and how one will balance the material needs along with the meaning were very difficult to answer. Even I wonder a lot of times a similar question - What next? Want to have a goal which is larger than life, larger than MY life. By my life I mean it is relative to each individual for e.g. as a child overcoming shyness was larger than life in college years getting into a top management institute was a larger than my life goal, it can be different for a different individual.
From where do these larger than life goals form? I believe as a child when we are growing up we see adults and feel we have some inadequacy and we wish to overcome that. Ask any small child and he/ she wishes to grow big. He wants to become an adult/ a man/ a woman. And when she is more aware she wants to be like someone she admires who she thinks is better than her or there are some weaknesses which she wants to overcome or some attribute she thinks that will make her more socially acceptable/ famous.
And with this realization flows some goals in life which are important for you to make you feel good about yourself. Getting over with shyness, have a career, have a house, having a desired social circle of friends, etc. This is our natural purpose then and this keeps us keep busy in our growing years.
At the adult age we are able to achieve these. From the large lists one makes some of them are achieved and some fall into category not so important now, you eliminate some goals labeling them as not qualified as an inadequacy. It is a fair process.
By not so important now or elimination I mean as a child at initial stages you wanted to be an all rounder – have good looks, most well dressed, most intellectual, best in sports, in all sports, be good in arts, languages, etc.. Then starts your thinking faculty you hear wisdom around you - Everyone has his/ her own strengths and you are unique and you start eliminating some of it. For some take the intellectual path some the looks path, some sports path. It is a different concoction for a different individual. And as adults this process is complete. As an adult this process of elimination becomes even stronger as most of the goals for us as humans (social animals) are a way to find acceptance among others. As a child you want everyone to admire you but as an adult you get selective and have a narrower social circle. It contains your family, friends, and professional network. Most of these are made on your own individual strengths and hence elimination is easier as the end goal of you being admired/ adequate is easier to get by only few of your strengths.
It’s not the just the as a child you have such aims but there are two other initial stages which keeps one busy one is - when you start working and then the only aim at that a time is to prove yourself as a competent professional and you fight, slog to prove yourself adequate to this new world of yours. Another important stage is acquiring a family and that keeps you busy.
But thereafter you may come to stage of not knowing what to do, what is more meaningful and a general lack of purpose. When this happens to individual? It varies from individual to individual. For some it can be as early as his twenties and for some it may be when near to his death. When you question your own life flow it is bound to come.
This general lack of purpose and meaning I think happens as we stop feeling inadequate, stop dreaming about ourselves, stop challenging, stop seeing the world as we see as a child - a place of opportunity to learn. We just want to get over the first list of goals list we had as a child and feel good.
Why do we stop? Is it because we do not want to feel inadequate as that can be stressful? As a child this feeling had positive outcome to go out there and achieve. But as we grow into adults we have our defenses on and we are no longer let anyone or our self know of these weaknesses. We stop challenging ourselves.
Is it fear of failure? All your life till now you have struggled to make it adequate. Somewhere you succeeded some goals you gave up by intelligent elimination – not so important any longer to feel adequate. Opening up another set of goals means fresh set of work and you may fail.
Is it also because we have taken some responsibilities and now to go out there and achieve means a lot of hard work? And well hard work means giving up a lot of lazy pleasures of life.
There is so much to do as human beings, enough of meaning/ purpose one can find if we just challenge ourselves. Ask yourself what next? What looks important to you in life, what you would want to have as an individual it can be of any nature – physical, intellectual, material or spiritual. Overcome your fears and just go out there and do it.
