For the longest time, I believed that there’s only purpose of life: And that is to be happy.
Right? Why else go through all the pain and hardship? It’s to achieve happiness in some way.
And I’m not the only person who believed that. In fact, if you look around you, most people are pursuing happiness in their lives.
That’s why we collectively buy shit we don’t need, go to bed with people we don’t love, and try to work hard to get approval of people we don’t like.
Why do we do these things? To be honest, I don’t care what the exact reason is. I’m not a scientist. All I know is that it has something to do with history, culture, media, economy, psychology, politics, the information era, and you name it. The list is endless.
We are who we are.
Let’s just accept that. Most people love to analyze why people are not happy or don’t live fulfilling lives. I don’t necessarily care about the why.
I care more about how we can change.
Just a few short years ago, I did everything to chase happiness.
You buy something, and you think that makes you happy.
You hook up with people, and think that makes you happy.
You get a well-paying job you don’t like, and think that makes you happy.
You go on holiday, and you think that makes you happy.
But at the end of the day, you’re lying in your bed (alone or next to your spouse), and you think: “What’s next in this endless pursuit of happiness?”
Well, I can tell you what’s next: You, chasing something random that you believe makes you happy.
It’s all a façade. A hoax. A story that’s been made up.
Did Aristotle lie to us when he said:
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”
I think we have to look at that quote from a different angle. Because when you read it, you think that happiness is the main goal. And that’s kind of what the quote says as well.
But here’s the thing: How do you achieve happiness?
Happiness can’t be a goal in itself. Therefore, it’s not something that’s achievable.
I believe that happiness is merely a byproduct of usefulness.
When I talk about this concept with friends, family, and colleagues, I always find it difficult to put this into words. But I’ll give it a try here.
Most things we do in life are just activities and experiences.
You go on holiday.
You go to work.
You go shopping.
You have drinks.
You have dinner.
You buy a car.
Those things should make you happy, right? But they are not useful. You’re not creating anything. You’re just consuming or doing something. And that’s great.
Don’t get me wrong. I love to go on holiday, or go shopping sometimes. But to be honest, it’s not what gives meaning to life.
What really makes me happy is when I’m useful. When I create something that others can use. Or even when I create something I can use.
For the longest time I found it difficult to explain the concept of usefulness and happiness. But when I recently ran into a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the dots finally connected.
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
And I didn’t get that before I became more conscious of what I’m doing with my life. And that always sounds heavy and all. But it’s actually really simple.
It comes down to this: What are you DOING that’s making a difference?
Did you do useful things in your lifetime? You don’t have to change the world or anything. Just make it a little bit better than before you were born.
If you don’t know how, here are some ideas.
Help your boss with something that’s not your responsibility.
Take your mother to a spa.
Create a collage with pictures (not a digital one) for your spouse.
Write an article about the stuff you learned in life.
Help the pregnant lady who also has a 2-year old with her stroller.
Call your friend and ask if you can help with something.
Build a standing desk.
Start a business and hire an employee and treat them well.
That’s just some stuff I like to do. You can make up your own useful activities.
You see? It’s not anything big. But when you do little useful things every day, it adds up to a life that is well lived. A life that mattered.
The last thing I want is to be on my deathbed and realize there’s zero evidence that I ever existed.
Recently I read Not Fade Away by Laurence Shames and Peter Barton. It’s about Peter Barton, the founder of Liberty Media, who shares his thoughts about dying from cancer.
It’s a very powerful book and it will definitely bring tears to your eyes. In the book, he writes about how he lived his life and how he found his calling. He also went to business school, and this is what he thought of his fellow MBA candidates:
“Bottom line: they were extremely bright people who would never really do anything, would never add much to society, would leave no legacy behind. I found this terribly sad, in the way that wasted potential is always sad.”
You can say that about all of us. And after he realized that in his thirties, he founded a company that turned him into a multi-millionaire.
Another person who always makes himself useful is Casey Neistat. I’ve been following him for a year and a half now, and every time I watch his YouTube show, he’s doing something.
He also talks about how he always wants to do and create something. He even has a tattoo on his forearm that says “Do More.”
Most people would say, “why would you work more?” And then they turn on Netflix and watch back to back episodes of Daredevil.
A different mindset.
Being useful is a mindset. And like with any mindset, it starts with a decision. One day I woke up and thought to myself: What am I doing for this world? The answer was nothing.
And that same day I started writing. For you it can be painting, creating a product, helping elderly, or anything you feel like doing.
Don’t take it too seriously. Don’t overthink it. Just DO something that’s useful. Anything.
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Sagar Upadhyay
Sagar Upadhyay, Life is my area of expertise
Answered Apr 6, 2017
Death can be the greatest motivating factor as well as the greatest demotivating factor for us. We just have to look it right.
Why not die?
Because death is not end of this world. Death is just the end of your part in this world. Just like birth is the start of your part in this world.
How you want to play your part depends on you. “Being happy and successful” is one of the many goals that you can set for your part. You can choose anything as per your wish. You can be the next Osama or you can be the next Obama – purely your call.
In book ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’, Morrie once says- “Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”
Dying with the least of regrets is what I will call a successful living because then you will know that you have played your part well enough.
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Parag Paul
Parag Paul, M.S Computer Science, University of Washington (2019)
Answered Apr 6, 2017
Continuity
I don’t know whether sensual pleasure counts in the list of materialistic needs. Just like there no such thing as ‘too much Kolkata Biryani’ or too much of ‘Sherlock’, or ‘too much sex’ ( may be not with the same person ), I think that life is too short to enjoy the fruits of mans creative juices. Moonlight sonata by Beethoven or Marriage of Figaro by Mozart is reason enough for living for a few years on this planet. A Federer vs Nadal match is a reason enough to wait for some years. A child ( your own if possible ), see her sleep near you, touch your cheeks is reason enough to reach parenthood. Reading Calvin is reason enough to live through the day. Seeing the world progress, following Elon Musks Mars colonization plans is reason enough to live for the next 10 years. Waiting till I see driver less cars all across, is another reason to live for the next 20 years. Waiting to see where Artificial intelligence heads in the next 30 years is reason enough. I am waiting for the next 40 years for a quantum leap in Quantum computing. Reading the next book by Jeffery Archer is reason enough to live for another few years. Creating some thing of your own is reason enough. Cancer research is reason enough.s
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Peter Codner
Peter Codner, former Barrister at Self-Employment (1983-2002)
Answered Apr 6, 2017
There is no purpose in a vacuum, purpose has to be purpose for some specific identified particular individual or it has no meaning whatsoever; do you understand that quite clearly?
What in reality you are asking is what do I or other people serve?-other people will have to remain a complete mystery to you that you yourself can have some sort of understanding of yourself depending on how conscious you can be and how often and for how long.
You will find your life considerably less complicated and less confusing if you give up this dream that you call happiness which is pure nonsense and simply dreaming, but occasionally just a reaction to some accident or other.being attached to dreams is call identification, which is a species of lying to oneself or just lying generally. To the devil with this nonsense about happiness.
the life of a dreaming machine or piece of meat has no purpose whatsoever for the very simple reason that dreaming machines and pieces of meat have very little purpose, Other than as food for something or other; but you bear in mind that the law of the universe is that you either eat or are eaten.
what you call purpose is largely a dream but it does not have to be a dream for a conscious man.
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Ravi Bhargava
Ravi Bhargava, Divisional Accounts Officer at Indian Audit and Accounts Department
Answered Apr 6, 2017
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We have got a limited amount of time and it’s up to us how we spend it.
We will die but not today we have to live the years we have got so why not live happily and make our life better and bring positive changes in others life too. As far as drive in life is concerned it’s different for different people.
just take the example of a mother she will do anything for her child. what drives her to live is the laughter of her baby.
what drives us to be alive is our wishes, it’s our wishes that motivate us to work hard. We want to be something, we want to die as something. so what if we died someday it doesn’t matter what matters is what we did while we were alive.
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Gaurav
Gaurav, B.tech from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (2020)
Answered Apr 6, 2017
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Why not die?
Because you don't have a choice. You are locked in a box. You want to get out of it? Then work! Find clues and be happy while doing it.
When you get out of it, don't call it a success.
Why?
Because there isn't just one box!
Get it?
If we all are going to die, then let's stop eating food and stop sleeping as well.
Can we do it? No! Because we love the feel when bread hits our hungry stomach and when we lay on bed after a heavy day, feeling in magnificent.
What if we start enjoying everything? Like even drinking water. Life will be no more a task for us. It'll be actually something that means LIFE. Get it?
Happiness and success are two different words actually. People use them together too often. Success will come if happiness is there but vice versa is so not true my friend.
Now you'll ask, “I am happy, like always but still not successful, why?”
See, you need to understand the mechanism of happiness. When you're happy, you live with it. You make your colleagues happy, you make the entire earth happy. But are you successful? Nahh!! Why? “Cause fame, gaurav! Money! We need that to be happy and successful”
Okay. Call me when you get both.
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