What's the Purpose of Life?

- Sharon Sarles

Occasionally I get bummed out and begin asking, "What's the purpose to life?" I ask this because I see that most people live without purpose, without caring about others or about any cause. For me, that life is not worth living. A world that is composed of people who care nothing for others or for any moral cause is not a world worth living in. This is so obvious to me that I cannot understand why people are willing then to go through life without some higher purpose. I suspect that they can only by spending a lot of energy distracting themselves from the horrendousness of the choice or by being dimwitted enough not to contemplate reality wider than their plate and bed.

One dear person close to me, offered his formulation of the purpose of life. For him, he said, the purpose of life is to have the highest number of positive emotions. I pointed out to him that Emelda Marcos had many positive emotions - probably many more than the average. But that those positive emotions were borne on the back of the toil of her countrymen. Leona Helmsley. Al Capone. Perhaps even Hitler. This formulation leaves out morality and thus the good of the whole. Therefore its pleasure is shallow and short.

Once I believed that the purpose of life was to live for others. I do know people who espouse this doctrine: lay down your life as Christ did. I know few who practice it. I did. I was disappointed. Perhaps I was disappointed mostly because the church I discovered was adamant on being more like the people cited above than like a community attempting to live out Jesus' precepts. At any rate, I found plenty of crucifixions and no resurrections.

However, there is a purpose to life. This I believe. For belief, I have found is useful, both to the individual and to the whole community. The purpose of life is to serve and enjoy the good forever. One cannot enjoy the good without serving it. One cannot either truly know or reliably continue to serve the good without enjoying it.