7 Strange Questions That Help You Find Your Life Purpose
Dear friends,
I found this article very applicable to questions we do really need to ask ourselves. Questions that perhaps only we can answer for ourselves. You should really read this article twice and be totally realistic in what it says. Does it apply to ourselves and if so how? When we face the truth, we should not avoid it, but meet it head on. Most importantly, do something about the truth and not just wave it away.
Tsem Rinpoche
7 Strange Questions That Help You Find Your Life Purpose
September 18, 2014 by Mark Manson
One day, when my brother was 18, he waltzed into the living room and proudly announced to my mother and me that one day he was going to be a senator. My mom probably gave him the “That’s nice, dear,” treatment while I’m sure I was distracted by a bowl of Cheerios or something.
But for fifteen years, this purpose informed all of my brother’s life decisions: what he studied in school, where he chose to live, who he connected with and even what he did with many of his vacations and weekends.
And now, after almost half a lifetime of work later, he’s the chairman of a major political party in his city and the youngest judge in the state. In the next few years, he hopes to run for office for the first time.
Don’t get me wrong. My brother is a freak. This basically never happens.
Most of us have no clue what we want to do with our lives. Even after we finish school. Even after we get a job. Even after we’re making money. Between ages 18 and 25, I changed career aspirations more often than I changed my underwear. And even after I had a business, it wasn’t until I was 28 that I clearly defined what I wanted for my life.
Chances are you’re more like me and have no clue what you want to do. It’s a struggle almost every adult goes through. “What do I want to do with my life?” “What am I passionate about?” “What do I not suck at?” I often receive emails from people in their 40s and 50s who still have no clue what they want to do with themselves.
Part of the problem is the concept of “life purpose” itself. The idea that we were each born for some higher purpose and it’s now our cosmic mission to find it. This is the same kind of shitty logic used to justify things like spirit crystals or that your lucky number is 34 (but only on Tuesdays or during full moons).
Here’s the truth. We exist on this earth for some undetermined period of time. During that time we do things. Some of these things are important. Some of them are unimportant. And those important things give our lives meaning and happiness. The unimportant ones basically just kill time.
So when people say, “What should I do with my life?” or “What is my life purpose?” what they’re actually asking is: “What can I do with my time that is important?”
This is an infinitely better question to ask. It’s far more manageable and it doesn’t have all of the ridiculous baggage that the “life purpose” question does. There’s no reason for you to be contemplating the cosmic significance of your life while sitting on your couch all day eating Doritos. Rather, you should be getting off your ass and discovering what feels important to you.
One of the most common email questions I get is people asking me what they should do with their lives, what their “life purpose” is. This is an impossible question for me to answer. After all, for all I know, this person is really into knitting sweaters for kittens or filming gay bondage porn in their basement. I have no clue. Who am I to say what’s right or what’s important to them?
But after some research, I have put together a series of questions to help you figure out for yourself what is important to you and what can add more meaning to your life.
These questions are by no means exhaustive or definitive. In fact, they’re a little bit ridiculous. But I made them that way because discovering purpose in our lives should be something that’s fun and interesting, not a chore.
1. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR OF SHIT SANDWICH AND DOES IT COME WITH AN OLIVE?
Ah, yes. The all-important question. What flavor of shit sandwich would you like to eat? Because here’s the sticky little truth about life that they don’t tell you at high school pep rallies:
Everything sucks, some of the time.
Now, that probably sounds incredibly pessimistic of me. And you may be thinking, “Hey Mr. Manson, turn that frown upside down.” But I actually think this is a liberating idea.
Everything involves sacrifice. Everything includes some sort of cost. Nothing is pleasurable or uplifting all of the time. So the question becomes: what struggle or sacrifice are you willing to tolerate? Ultimately, what determines our ability to stick with something we care about is our ability to handle the rough patches and ride out the inevitable rotten days.
If you want to be a brilliant tech entrepreneur, but you can’t handle failure, then you’re not going to make it far. If you want to be a professional artist, but you aren’t willing to see your work rejected hundreds, if not thousands of times, then you’re done before you start. If you want to be a hotshot court lawyer, but can’t stand the 80-hour workweeks, then I’ve got bad news for you.
turd-sandwich What unpleasant experiences are you able to handle? Are you able to stay up all night coding? Are you able to put off starting a family for 10 years? Are you able to have people laugh you off the stage over and over again until you get it right?
What shit sandwich do you want to eat? Because we all get served one eventually.
Might as well pick one with an olive.
2. WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT YOU TODAY THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR 8-YEAR-OLD SELF CRY?
When I was a child, I used to write stories. I used to sit in my room for hours by myself, writing away, about aliens, about superheroes, about great warriors, about my friends and family. Not because I wanted anyone to read it. Not because I wanted to impress my parents or teachers. But for the sheer joy of it.
And then, for some reason, I stopped. And I don’t remember why.
We all have a tendency to lose touch with what we loved as a child. Something about the social pressures of adolescence and professional pressures of young adulthood squeezes the passion out of us. We’re taught that the only reason to do something is if we’re somehow rewarded for it.
It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that I rediscovered how much I loved writing. And it wasn’t until I started my business that I remembered how much I enjoyed building websites — something I did in my early teens, just for fun.
The funny thing though, is that if my 8-year-old self had asked my 20-year-old self, “Why don’t you write anymore?” and I replied, “Because I’m not good at it,” or “Because nobody would read what I write,” or “Because you can’t make money doing that,” not only would I have been completely wrong, but that 8-year-old boy version of myself would have probably started crying.
3. WHAT MAKES YOU FORGET TO EAT AND POOP?
We’ve all had that experience where we get so wrapped up in something that minutes turn into hours and hours turn into “Holy crap, I forgot to have dinner.”
Supposedly, in his prime, Isaac Newton’s mother had to regularly come in and remind him to eat because he would go entire days so absorbed in his work that he would forget.
I used to be like that with video games. This probably wasn’t a good thing. In fact, for many years it was kind of a problem. I would sit and play video games instead of doing more important things like studying for an exam, or showering regularly, or speaking to other humans face-to-face.
It wasn’t until I gave up the games that I realized my passion wasn’t for the games themselves (although I do love them). My passion is for improvement, being good at something and then trying to get better. The games themselves — the graphics, the stories — they were cool, but I can easily live without them. It’s the competition — with others, but especially with myself — that I thrive on.
And when I applied that obsessiveness for improvement and self-competition to an internet business and to my writing, well, things took off in a big way.
Maybe for you, it’s something else. Maybe it’s organizing things efficiently, or getting lost in a fantasy world, or teaching somebody something, or solving technical problems. Whatever it is, don’t just look at the activities that keep you up all night, but look at the cognitive principles behind those activities that enthrall you. Because they can easily be applied elsewhere.
4. HOW CAN YOU BETTER EMBARRASS YOURSELF?
Before you are able to be good at something and do something important, you must first suck at something and have no clue what you’re doing. That’s pretty obvious. And in order to suck at something and have no clue what you’re doing, you must embarrass yourself in some shape or form, often repeatedly. And most people try to avoid embarrassing themselves, namely because it sucks.
Ergo, due to the transitive property of awesomeness, if you avoid anything that could potentially embarrass you, then you will never end up doing something that feels important.
Yes, it seems that once again, it all comes back to vulnerability.
Right now, there’s something you want to do, something you think about doing, something you fantasize about doing, yet you don’t do it. You have your reasons, no doubt. And you repeat these reasons to yourself ad infinitum.
But what are those reasons? Because I can tell you right now that if those reasons are based on what others would think, then you’re screwing yourself over big time.
If your reasons are something like, “I can’t start a business because spending time with my kids is more important to me,” or “Playing Starcraft all day would probably interfere with my music, and music is more important to me,” then OK. Sounds good.
But if your reasons are, “My parents would hate it,” or “My friends would make fun of me,” or “If I failed, I’d look like an idiot,” then chances are, you’re actually avoiding something you truly care about because caring about that thing is what scares the shit out of you, not what mom thinks or what Timmy next door says.
Living a life avoiding embarrassment is akin to living a life with your head in the sand.
Great things are, by their very nature, unique and unconventional. Therefore, to achieve them, we must go against the herd mentality. And to do that is scary.
Embrace embarrassment. Feeling foolish is part of the path to achieving something important, something meaningful. The more a major life decision scares you, chances are the more you need to be doing it.
5. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD?
In case you haven’t seen the news lately, the world has a few problems. And by “a few problems,” what I really mean is, “everything is fucked and we’re all going to die.”
I’ve harped on this before, and the research also bears it out, but to live a happy and healthy life, we must hold on to values that are greater than our own pleasure or satisfaction.1
So pick a problem and start saving the world. There are plenty to choose from. Our screwed up education systems, economic development, domestic violence, mental health care, governmental corruption. Hell, I just saw an article this morning on sex trafficking in the US and it got me all riled up and wishing I could do something. It also ruined my breakfast.
Find a problem you care about and start solving it. Obviously, you’re not going to fix the world’s problems by yourself. But you can contribute and make a difference. And that feeling of making a difference is ultimately what’s most important for your own happiness and fulfillment.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Gee Mark, I read all of this horrible stuff and I get all pissed off too, but that doesn’t translate to action, much less a new career path.”
Glad you asked…
6. GUN TO YOUR HEAD, IF YOU HAD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, WHERE WOULD YOU GO AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
For many of us, the enemy is just old-fashioned complacency. We get into our routines. We distract ourselves. The couch is comfortable. The Doritos are cheesy. And nothing new happens.
This is a problem.
What most people don’t understand is that passion is the result of action, not the cause of it.2, 3
Discovering what you’re passionate about in life and what matters to you is a full-contact sport, a trial-and-error process. None of us know exactly how we feel about an activity until we actually do the activity.
So ask yourself, if someone put a gun to your head and forced you to leave your house every day for everything except for sleep, how would you choose to occupy yourself? And no, you can’t just go sit in a coffee shop and browse Facebook. You probably already do that. Let’s pretend there are no useless websites, no video games, no TV. You have to be outside of the house all day every day until it’s time to go to bed — where would you go and what would you do?
Sign up for a dance class? Join a book club? Go get another degree? Invent a new form of irrigation system that can save the thousands of children’s lives in rural Africa? Learn to hang glide?
What would you do with all of that time?
If it strikes your fancy, write down a few answers and then, you know, go out and actually do them. Bonus points if it involves embarrassing yourself.
7. IF YOU KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DIE ONE YEAR FROM TODAY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO AND HOW WOULD YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?
Most of us don’t like thinking about death. It freaks us out. But thinking about our own death surprisingly has a lot of practical advantages. One of those advantages is that it forces us to zero in on what’s actually important in our lives and what’s just frivolous and distracting.
When I was in college, I used to walk around and ask people, “If you had a year to live, what would you do?” As you can imagine, I was a huge hit at parties. A lot of people gave vague and boring answers. A few drinks were nearly spit on me. But it did cause people to really think about their lives in a different way and re-evaluate what their priorities were.
This man’s headstone will read: “Here lies Greg. He watched every episode of ’24’… twice.”
What is your legacy going to be? What are the stories people are going to tell when you’re gone? What is your obituary going to say? Is there anything to say at all? If not, what would you like it to say? How can you start working towards that today?
And again, if you fantasize about your obituary saying a bunch of badass shit that impresses a bunch of random other people, then again, you’re failing here.
When people feel like they have no sense of direction, no purpose in their life, it’s because they don’t know what’s important to them, they don’t know what their values are.
And when you don’t know what your values are, then you’re essentially taking on other people’s values and living other people’s priorities instead of your own. This is a one-way ticket to unhealthy relationships and eventual misery.
Discovering one’s “purpose” in life essentially boils down to finding those one or two things that are bigger than yourself, and bigger than those around you. And to find them you must get off your couch and act, and take the time to think beyond yourself, to think greater than yourself, and paradoxically, to imagine a world without yourself.
Footnotes
1.Sagiv, L., & Schwartz, S. H. (2000). Value priorities and subjective well-being: direct relations and congruity effects. European Journal of Social Psychology, 30(2), 177–198.↵
2.Wrzesniewski, A., McCauley, C., Rozin, P., & Schwartz, B. (1997). Jobs, careers, and callings: People’s relations to their work. Journal of Research in Personality, 31(1), 21–33.↵
3.Newport, C. (2012). So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love. Business Plus.↵
[Source: http://markmanson.net/life-purpose/]
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It is true that many of us, even when we are in our 40’s or 50’s we still don’t know what we want in our lives and we are lost. What the author said is quite right, the reason why we have no purpose in life is because we don’t know what is important to us and we don’t see our values. When this happens, we don’t live for our purpose but we live for other people’s expectation or values. This is not healthy because it may lead to depression.
We must have purpose in our life or what we want to achieve. When we have the goal, we will have the direction and things to do in order to achieve our goal, this motivates us to move forward and further every day.
These questions hit just right on the bull’s eye. For majority of us, we are just living our lives what other people think we should. We are too afraid to be different from others and as a result we have to force ourselves to live our lives in a way that can meet others’ expectations so that we can blend into the so called ‘society’. This thinking has made us a habit whereby we use to take others’ views on us fare more serious than our own feelings and aims.
Furthermore, to get out from our comfort zones is also something killing for most of us. When we talk about achieving success, most of us are only talking about an easy success that we can easily achieve by staying within our own comfort zone. When we are required to get out from there so that we can achieve something different and bigger, we can always provide ourselves with hundreds if not thousands of reasons why the idea is not working.
As such, when these seven questions may be useful in assisting us to seek for our life purposes, we must also add in an extra question which is:-
ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH TO GO FOR IT IF YOU EVER FIND YOUR LIFE PURPOSE?
Sometimes, we may not be lost in our life but we are just not brave enough to act.
For some, these questions are ‘hit right on the head’. Most doesn’t truly know their true purpose in life, they have a rough idea what they want to do when they grow up or what they want to do when they are at certain age, but they do now know how to achieve it. Generally speaking is, work hard at it.
For some that have high status or already have what they dream of, have they really ‘achieved’ their purpose in life? They are still struggling either at work, family or even personal life.
Bottom line is, we need to spread the dharma & to help others to practice.
Purpose in life.. I had one when I was little but when I grow older and older, I found that purpose that I had has gone very far away from me and it’s like so hard to achieve and it wasn’t that important to me anymore. I was distracted with too many things that I want instead of I need. i was too busy and too tired chasing what I thought was important and I forgot about my purpose i used to have and the value I used to see in myself.
Today I found my purpose of life back. This purpose changed my life to the way I’ve never thought it would be but I’m sure about it bacause, it’s not about what I want but it’s about what others need.
Meditating on death is the best way of motivating ourselves to be determine with what we want to achieve in our lives. There are many little little things that we can contribute and do everyday that will make the world a better place and change others life or to make others happy. Many things can be done without money, without being rich, without a degree or without a creative mind etc. You don’t have to be somebody. Just believe in yourself. There’s a value inside waiting to be open up. what u need to do it to nurture it. Just like a seed will only sprout when there’s soil and water. That tiny little leaf will change your life and the world.
My gratitude to my Guru who showed me his compassion and showed me hope toward the real purpose in my life and opened up my heart to see the value of myself.
Everybody has wondered at one time or another why they exist. What is the purpose in life? Many people spending time searching for their purpose in life and come to many different conclusions. Is there even a purpose in life. Every of us have a different view and purpose . Some of us find that the meaning of life is to have a career, get married, and raise a family. To me it’s not about some great achievement, but merely finding a way to spend our limited amount of time well. Life is short we must spent our time wisely and do something with purpose and do it with determination then it is fruitful. To me every problem we have is an opportunity to discover more about our purpose, providing us with a joy and happiness. Reading the strange questions it could helps us to gain insight to know more and will trigger our minds to contemplate deeper.
Thank you so much Rinpoche for sharing this article .
When i was young, i use to ask myself what is the purpose of ĺife and i want to use it more meaning not just waste it and do nothing to benifit other. I start serching the answer until i met buddhism which give more strange to improve my knowledge through practing the dharma. No matter what you do, never give up and precue
your dream, have scence of humanity around you, respect other living being, religion and their race. Get in touch with others. You will feel them, in cluding yourself the meaning of life. We all independer each other living in this life.
“You only live once, YOLO” indeed, we only live once with the present body & environment but I believe we will definetely come back as another living form or in other realm after we passed on.
Hence, we should not think that what we do that are causing harms to others will not come back to in later in this life or future lives. We should appreciate every moment of living & do our best to live without regret.
When we were young, we always plan what we want to be, along the way we may face difficulties and we may start to think what is the purpose of life. Most of us ended with not sure what we are doing. I have at one stage find life had no meaning to me. To me, the best question to ask is what can I do for the rest of my life to benefit ownself and others, at least you will start doing something and then move on instead of keep thinking what is the purpose of life. And reading this article will help to refresh yourself and make your plan move smoothly.
These indeed are the questions that strike our mind like lightning. But as everyone of us always busy with our daily routine and our daily activities, we tend to forget what are we looking for in life? We even tend to forget what we like in our childhood. As long as we can spend time, sit down, meditate, and contemplate, all these questions will slowly strike our mind. Meditation is one of the good methods that helps us to contemplate our life.
Sometimes people don’t really remember why is the purpose of life or rather their real purpose in life. As time goes by, one can potentially sway away from their original “purpose” too. These 7 questions are thought provoking and it does help me to think deeper into what is my real purpose in life.
To me, the purpose of life should be meaningful. Whether what we had done wrong or right in our pass, we realized and change to be better. Forgive those who had given us bitter life and care for them because these people needed our love most. In hope they will perceived, changed and transform to be better. I believe help improving one person thoughts, abilities and as well as ourselves are the most valuable thing. ?
These seven questions may seem strange but thought provoking because they made me think deeper about my life. What my life had been as a child, a teenager, a young adult, a middle aged and aging person. What have I done, what I am doing, what will I be doing.
Sometimes we really to ask ourselves some questions like what we want to do in our life or what do we want to achieve in life. These kind of questions will trigger our minds to contemplate deeper so that we can make the decisions for our live.
Discovering the purpose of life make us live our life meaningfully and more focus. In deed it’s not a simple question for some, but it’s a good question for us to understand ourselves better and to think further what we want to do for our remaining life. As a Buddhist to be in service to benefit others is my purpose of life. Focus out and give a hand for those needed is fulfilling. Knowing the life span of our existent is undetermined so we need must be firm with what we want and learn up how to spend our time for it. We can’t determine when our time will arrive but we can determine what and how to prepare ourselves before it come.
Reading this article made me reflect on how I had led my life without much consideration of any thing else except my own satisfaction of achievements, until I realised that I did have a vision of how I want to have something that last for the sake of others living to the best of who they can be.
I discovered my vision when I was around 53 years old, having attended an intensive adult experiential training which also highlighted to me my impatience with people and how I would escape such experiences by the method of avoidance by mere deletion. That had been my way of coping with not realising my vision and also my indifference to find some level of wisdom to achieve the premise of creating the ability to cope with and guide with my personal experience.
In answering the above 7 questions points to my inept methods of taking responsibility to achieve my goal in life. That is to do my best without expectations so that someone can strive to be the best of who they are without a standard set in my mind.
To achieve the goal of being in support for others to excel, I have learnt that it is to be without my preset standards and expectations but rather just to create the space whereby excelling is in others own journey and joy of learning.
It is never easy to find acceptance of all things until we are passionate about what is our goal and purpose in life. I may not have developed to perfection of myself in achieving my purpose in life but I am more at peace in my own journey of discovery.
What will be my legacy when I die, only answers from those who had been in my space will the answers be known.
My definition of life purpose is doing the things that matter now and in the future. Well, some of us have more purposes. Spiritually, secularly or both. I believe that both are equally important as it balances my thoughts and purposes. On the spiritual side, I get to think ‘rationally’ on things that I do. Weighing how spiritual it would be before making decisions yet at the same time how it would benefit me secularly. Nevertheless, most important is the motivation that the spiritual side serve. Something we will look back as we get older and be proud of what we did.
Thank you for sharing! ? It helps to gain insight to know which values and goals activate one’s willpower. While living, our minds and bodies are constantly being bombarded with external inputs via our 5 senses. It is good to consciously take control and add some high quality inputs to life.
As random as these seven questions may seem, they somewhat make us think about the priorities we are giving to several aspect in life. The questions also helps to stimulate some thoughts on what motivate us or what trigger us to get out of our routine to try something different. Would it the ambition to try save the world, or the knowledge of impending death, or perhaps a forgotten passion, or even the embarrassment of achieving nothing? Some good questions to ponder. Thank you for this sharing.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this very interesting and profound article.
As we grow up, sooner or later , we will be confronted by someone, a relative or friend, who will ask us about what we want to do with our lives. If we have an answer already, it is usually an answer that conforms with the norms society has set for us.More often than not, one’s life’s purpose as dictated by society,does not ultimately bring us happiness. Instead more frustrations and disillusionment, if we are to be honest about it.
Hence these 7 questions are great because they make us probe our minds and find out, in truth, what should be our life’s purpose. Ultimately, we will find out that we have to have a vision that is bigger than ourselves and to go beyond ourselves. We have to see that what society says should be the goal of our lives is essentially about the pursuit of SELF happiness and about realising the conventional dream of our making good in life -BECOMING RICH AND FAMOUS. It is better that we realise the falsity and hopelessness of this dream now than to go all the way in life to pursue it and crash and then it may b too late.
It is best that we look at this link https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/inspiration-worthy-words/this-will-change-your-life.html
and face the reality now; so we can set ourselves to embark on a meaningful purpose of life.
1.WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR OF SHIT SANDWICH AND DOES IT COME WITH AN OLIVE?
2. WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT YOU TODAY THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR 8-YEAR-OLD SELF CRY?
3. WHAT MAKES YOU FORGET TO EAT AND POOP?
4. HOW CAN YOU BETTER EMBARRASS YOURSELF?
5. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD?
6. GUN TO YOUR HEAD, IF YOU HAD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, WHERE WOULD YOU GO AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
7. IF YOU KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DIE ONE YEAR FROM TODAY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO AND HOW WOULD YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?
7 interesting questions that I never ask myself before. The last question is a good question because everyone will surely gone from the earth, thus how would you want to be remember? This let me think for a while… thanks for sharing this article.
I remember vaguely that I have read this post three years ago. The picture of Greg refreshed my memories :p Thanks to your comment that I am reading this again and I must say it is more apt than ever!
I have asked my 8 year old, actually it felt like 5, what matters most and what have I long forgotten because of peer pressures, low self-esteem and wrong values. There were things I wanted to do that I fear doing after 30 over years of me telling myself that I will never be good at, the fear of failing and looking completely stupid. Opsh, did I not just disclosed my age? LOL
The main issue here is me creating all obstacles within myself, convincing myself to stay comfortably within my fear and live life taking on other people’s values and priorities which obviously strongly objected by my 5 year old. The powerful thing is, somehow or another, the 5 year old has managed to get me to where I meant to be and it is now up to the 30 year old to openly face it and do something about it. If the 30 year old chooses to ignore it, she can be on the right path but will end up doing all the wrong thing. This is a result of avoiding doing what is necessary or to fulfil the life purpose.
My point is we all know what we are meant to be doing – the opposite of what we are unhappy about our current situation. If we claimed we don’t, changes are we are avoiding the fact that we have allowed ourselves hiding in our fear behind the smallest and insignificant things like a TV programme, video games, Lays crisps, cleaning in my case, than to deal with the real deal.
These questions are another skilful ways to help us see where we are and if we are honest about changing for the better, we know what to do.
7 amazing questions to check where you are right now and also trigger you to think where you like to be.
感謝仁波切您的分享，在這篇文章引发自我思考。生存的意义是什么？
感謝您將這發人深省的文章。
Thank you so much Rinpoche for sharing this article . I’ve never thought about my purpose of life only until recently , only when i’ve joined Kechara . All these years blindly following the herd , chasing after life’s luxuries never endingly . I now know what to do , slowly but surely I’ll do more for others’ because that’s where true happiness lies
Wow what a powerful read this was. “passion is the result of action, not the cause of it.” I love this saying and quote! And liked how Manson actually used the big taboo question on “death” which in Buddhism is part of our daily meditation to remind us to move ourselves in to being in action. It reminds me of many of RInpoche’s advice and teachings on death and what we want to leave behind when we’re gone. A legacy, a nice memory or bitter end no one cares about. Must remember this.
Manson wrote this article very truthfully blunt, very true, which is exactly how life presents itself, but how much we are will to embrace it all and rise above it all shows us how bad we want it. Must read this article again and contemplate… it provokes a lot of good questions to one’s being and purpose. Thank you Rinpoche for posting this up!
I know I may be too young to read something like this, but this really helped me to sort out my thoughts about what I want to be in the future. I’m in Singapore currently after receiving ASEAN scholarship, thinking that this scholarship can help me realize what I want to do with my life, but apparently, I don’t see the “light”. I don’t know what I should do with the chances given to me and although I’m more of an “arts” person, I had no choice but to take up “sciences”. I had a passion for arts and dance but I was too chicken to try, even in singapore as I was scared of being judged by my peers. I feel that living has no purpose if I were to just study and graduate and get a good job and… well you know the drill. Then out of nowhere one of the pastor’s frequent words came to me: “READ RINPOCHE’S BLOG”, and I did. And I came across this post. And question number 4 made everything in my mind click. And I’m going to take up dance and poetry writing as my co-curricular activities.
Dear Jesseca,
Thank you for sharing how this blog post has changed you, your views on life and even your personal goals 🙂
You may feel that you may be too young to read something like this, but it’s a good thing that you did! Life’s too short, it’s better to pursue a path of passion than one due to peer pressure and fear of judgment. People will criticise anyways, if you’re doing nothing that harms others like dancing and poetry – go for it!
I’m happy to see that you’ve chosen a path that you feel will make you happy. If you have any questions whilst pursuing your studies, I’m sure that the Kechara Pastors will be more than willing to answer any of your questions! https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/ask-the-pastors
All the best in your studies!
With folded hands,
Jean Mei
Thank you Rinpoche for the sharing.
What can I do with my time that is important? My “important thing” always changes. I used to think that have quality life and travel around the world is the most important thing for me.
However, if I were going to die in a year, what are the things that are important to me? Travel around the world and enjoy my life? Or helping others who in needs? I think I will go for the later because it is much more meaningful. The second thing that is important for me is to fulfill all my promises so that I will leave with no regret.
If I have found the important things for me, why do I wait until a year before I die to do it? Why not now? This may sound “funny” or stupid to others. But what matter to us is our own happiness and fulfillment.
Thanks for Rinpoche’s sharing. It was truth that we always ask ourself ” what’s the meaning in living in this world” , how I going to spend my life”..and shame to say that I still did not have clear direction about this and keeping carry on every day just like other..study, working, take care children …maybe I still don’t know what is important of my life or I know it but choose to ignore it. …really need to contemplate and found out the “truth” meaning of the “Life”.
Apparently, this is a very accurate description of what i always ask myself… so i’m not the only one who thinks the same way…
This was wonderful! Great questions! I always draw a blank when I try to think what is my life’s purpose. So much here to think about. I really love the point blank way it is written also. It like a slap in the face, “Wake the hell up!”. I have always wanted to learn to weave or hook a rug. I am going to go give it a try just becaue of reading this. Hugs.
Wow…….
To be honest, I’m still a little doubtful about this whole thing we call life. In the strictest of senses, it is just suffering (or perhaps it’s my depression that’s leaking out again?)
Either way, thank you for the food for thought, Rinpoche. Thank you for sharing.
1. My favorite flavor of sh*t sandwich is the potential for death. Yes, it comes with an olive. 🙂
2. Love doesn’t always work out well.
3. Working on politics and policy.
4. I can make more of an a* out of myself through my writing and fighting for human well being.
5. Writing and teaching, ultimately.
6. I’d go onto the next life. There’s nothing really here that’s new or intriguing. Maybe space?
7. I want to be known for my laugh, cause that’s what I’ll be doing (if I were to die in a year)!
Would love to hear what people think about this.
Thank you!
🙂
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for sharing this article. Really gets me thinking. I have a rough idea what I would do if I have 1 year to live.
Thank you for such a thought-provoking article.
I have been asking myself what’s the purpose of my life for the longest time ever. Whereas I should be asking “what can I do with my time that is important?”. Yes, I can continue to work and earn money and be merry and indulge in all the worldly entertainment. But are these activities important to me when I am dying, entering the white light, and in my next life or next next life. Once realizing that all worldly concerns are fleetingly impermanence, it is logical for us to spend our time on activities that is important and have lasting benefits.
Thank You Rinpoche for this post.