The Meaning and Purpose

The meaning and purpose of life and everything else -- is simply to get better, no matter what one is doing.  That is the simplicity of life and everything one is doing -- and not simply to repeat what one is doing for as long as one can.  That makes life and everything one does  -- meaningless.  Yet that is what many people do -- thinking that is the whole object of life -- and why it becomes more meaningless every day -- rather than more meaningful.  So that is what one must ask of oneself in everything they do:  Am I getting better or worse?

Obviously, that question takes on greater importance in age and time -- that is the ultimate test of everything one does.  Is it possible one asks, to keep on improving throughout life -- or does there come a time and age at which only getting worse is possible and realistic?  That is the question and challenge of every moment.

We invariably fail when we begin to ask that question wrongly -- in thinking we can only do what we have only done before -- and not move on to do things differently -- which makes improvement not only possible, but easy, particularly and especially, when the familiar and routine, becomes problematical and difficult.  Therein lies the problem -- and quandary.  The familiar and old, have become the difficult, and even impossible -- and the only way, is to make it easier again, by finding some other way -- in which improvement is not only possible, but necessary and inevitable.

But the problem is that we never seek and explore another way -- but keep trying to do the difficult and impossible, harder -- even if it kills us, rather than to find an easier way -- even if it is as simple as moving in the most basic ways.  Often, that is because we have forgotten those lessons we formerly learned -- and have forgotten because they worked, and thus we abandoned them, or simply took them for granted.

Yet that is the reason we often hang onto to those things we have forgotten why we have them -- not because they no longer work, but we no longer use them -- but there may be something else we can use better now and more productively, but refuse to embrace as what we must now.  Of course it is preferable to embrace them willingly rather than reluctantly, and with great resistance.  That is the challenge of the new, undiscovered and untried.  That does not need to be the more difficult -- but in fact, is the easier way -- that we simply refuse to adopt as they way it must be now.  That is especially true when the old ways used to work -- but no longer do now, and instead of changing, we think it has become hopeless, because everything seems to have changed -- as they always will.

But individually and personally, can one keep changing with those times -- or will one continue to keep on doing what one has always done before, even when they are no longer working? -- and maybe they never worked so well at all?  One will never know that -- unless they try something else -- that might.  Otherwise, they think there is nothing else -- and nothing works anymore, even if they used to -- but not anymore, and it never occurs to them, that maybe it did not work at all.

That would not be the exception, but the rule -- with most things in life.  Thus frequently, what we thought to be true -- no longer is, and the opposite is now true, or what is now accepted as the truth of the matter.  So the problem is what we believed to be true -- and never bothered to find out otherwise -- until many years later, and hopefully not too late.

But if it is still a problem, and getting worse, we really have to do something about it, and obviously differently, or it simply will continue to get worse -- and the whole object in life and everything we do -- is to get better, and we often lose sight of that, as busy and committed as we have come to what doesn't work -- and no amount of time, energy and commitment will change that -- because we are on the wrong path, and will not accept that. 

That is the simple truth of all we do.  We have to find an easier (better) way -- when what we have been doing, is not working, and no amount of more -- will make a difference.

One Day At A Time

A lot of people set out each day to solve all the problems in their life -- for the rest of their lives -- rather than just their most pressing problem, at any particular moment.  Obviously, that is putting the cart before the horse -- which doesn't work so well, if at all.  Problems arise one at a time, and not all the problems, at once -- diluting one's focus and attention.  Ineffective people, are those solving the problems of the past -- or future, while devoting no attention to the present moment -- which is the only reality that ever matters. 

Just talking with such people, is energy-draining, because one's attention and focus is constantly being redirected to the imaginary -- instead of the actualities.  It is their entertainment -- and only way they know how to be.  Their being, is becoming something other than they are.  And so the best advice for such people, is simply to be themselves -- and not the other they wish to become.  That is the genius, of knowing oneself -- rather than some other fantasy, of another they want to become.

Becoming other than they are, is the favorite "entertainment," of those who will never truly know themselves -- which is the highest attainment in any life -- to simply Know Oneself.  That really is the whole point of any life -- great or small.  It's not about the money, food, drink, or song -- but simply the awareness of the person one is -- and not what one wishes to think about themselves, or to have others think of them.  All that, doesn't matter -- not in the big picture, because they are just illusions and delusions that take one away from what they could be doing to actually make a difference in their lives.

Knowing those differences, is what differentiates the successful from the unsuccessful -- who can't tell that difference.  And that is why they are unsuccessful at everything they do -- because they cannot distinguish and discriminate the significant and important, from the insignificant and unimportant, and so are always doing the wrong things -- at the wrong time, thinking it doesn't matter.

They characteristically think that just doing anything, is as good as doing the right thing -- thinking nobody can tell the difference, and it is simply enough just to "look busy" -- and get paid the same as those actually doing something productive and worthwhile.  Needless to say, they miss the whole point of living and learning -- and simply grow old and more useless every day.  They may even think that the whole object in life -- is to get as many others doing as much for them, as they could be doing for themselves -- as the ultimate objective of their lives.

The supremely healthy individual, is one capable of doing as much for themselves as possible, and in that way, become civilizations and cultures in themselves -- by building their lives one day at a time -- as though everything mattered.  That is a life of significance -- because they have made it so, and not thinking that all in life is simply entertainment, and then they die.  That is the obvious danger of contemporary culture to many people, so bored that they think that the quest in life is for more entertainment -- while doing nothing of consequence to improve their own lives.

Of course such a thing is possible -- every moment of one's life -- taking it one day at a time, with attention to detail -- and leaving the great task of changing the world, to the delusional and bored.