When I’m unhappy, I feel like I’m doing life wrong. I’d rather be happy. But is happiness the point of life, or is there more to it? If I pursue happiness, mine first then for those around me, is that selfish? But if there’s a bigger purpose, then what about people with Alzheimer’s or dementia who can’t recall recent experiences or make plans?
Oh definitely and 1000% would never say that productivity is the purpose of life. That perspective is so disgusting, in my opinion. The interactions I have with my patients that bring such satisfaction are the exact opposite of “productive” and frequently put me at odds with the goals of the corporation I have no choice but to work for.
Probably, for me, I’d say my purpose is to lift up people around me. To help them find the ways they are strong and support them through the ways they are weak. Sometimes the only thing I can really do to help someone in the moment is make them laugh, so I try to do that. Sometimes I just sit with them while they cry. Being a nurse just happens to be a profession where I can do this and also receive a paycheck, so it works for me.
I like to picture the world as a scale of good things and bad things. I can’t fix all the bad things, but I can add weight to the side of the good things every day. Put one more thing on the good side of the scale and tilt the world in that direction however minutely. I won’t tip the whole scale by myself, but my efforts combined with all the other people in the world doing good things that I don’t even know about certainly will, even if I personally don’t get to witness that tilting.
And that last paragraph is pretty key, in my opinion. Imagination is a fundamental ability of human beings and what we believe about ourselves and the world affects us more than anything external to ourselves. And the way we imagine ourselves and the world is always inherently within our control. So I think part of “what we do” in life is to create meaning.