What gives your life purpose?

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My dream of succeed in a dream of mine and my friends and family. Those both gave my the strength to deal with the rough times I had last year.

What gives my life purpose is the ability to research & discover. I like learning about new things & thinking about lifes hardest questions, or maybe I'm just trying to find a way to fill in the time until I can sleep again. What also gives my life purpose is my pets. A lot of the time when I was really depressed I wouldn't have gotten out of my bed if it weren't for my pets nagging at me for food, or jumping on my bed trying to wake me up. They are always there for me no matter what & that has on so many occassions, kept me from giving up on life altogether.

I'm looking for a new purpose right now. Maybe I'll write another book. Right now, my only purpose is taking care of my kitten.

I'm not even sure at this point in my life...every now and then I get a sense of hope or a desire to change things for the better, but then almost immediately after I feel too small to get those things done. Anyone know the song 'Purpose' from Avenue Q? It may or may not cheer you up. I myself am a fan of that musical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mATf3SAqj30

From an early age, my own goals in life have been to have a wife and have kids. I want to give to others what my parents gave me, life. I want to make someone happy, by just being myself. I want to share the experiences of my life with someone, sharing and explaining the experiences of my life has never been my strong point. It would be nice if someone else was there to share it with me, so at least there was someone who understood my life. It's seeming like a bit of a pipe-dream at the moment.

My purpose? Up until about 5 years ago... nothing. Not a thing! I didn't particularly like my job. I spent my time playing on the computer, playing video games, wondering around town, etc... I simply existed, plain and simple. Greatest excitement in my life would be some new video game coming out, or a faster CPU, or something.

Then I first started hiking, then working out, then riding a mountain bike, then riding a road bike, then competing, and now I'm doing triathlons.

I have an Ironman race in two months! I've pretty much been preoccupied with training and prepration. motherf****ng Ironman is who I am. That's my purpose.

Unfortunately, the up-down rollercoaster we all are very familar with has been going down last few weeks and I've been depressed. (Women...women!) I'm hoping to get out of that an back into my training regimen. (Damn the relationships. I ought to just join a seminary or something. But I'm an atheist! )

Actually, I suppose projects can be helpful. And taking them one step at a time. I always try to learn a little bit of a new language every summer. Some summers aren't so successful, but it's something to do. And I wanted to make a thumb piano. That would be great =)

Last year, I was required to take Speech class and I didn't like it at all. I mean, the professor's purpose was to help us realize what our purpose was and all, but I didn't really know at that point and we had a hw assignment and I wrote about my interests and what I like to do, but he wrote, "but what is your purpose?" and I almost cried in class, but waited until I was on my way home. But yeah, still working on that answer.

Actually, I suppose projects can be helpful. And taking them one step at a time. I always try to learn a little bit of a new language every summer. Some summers aren't so successful, but it's something to do. And I wanted to make a thumb piano. That would be great =)

Last year, I was required to take Speech class and I didn't like it at all. I mean, the professor's purpose was to help us realize what our purpose was and all, but I didn't really know at that point and we had a hw assignment and I wrote about my interests and what I like to do, but he wrote, "but what is your purpose?" and I almost cried in class, but waited until I was on my way home. But yeah, still working on that answer.

right now, finding a job. Have the wife and kids, but they need to eat...so ya gotta...

I think my purpose in life is to teach others that not everything or everyone needs a purpose. The idea of purpose is foreign to me. I dont have goals, I have dreams and desires. And duties.

My beautiful children. Their excitement at discovering the world is contagious. My studies are important too and it's nice to know that someday (hopefully) I'll make a difference to some young person's life.

my life does not have to have a purpose. there is no ultimate purpose for anything.

when i consider how low the odds are of me existing, it is staggering. i mean... even in the conception of my life, my father emptied maybe 50 million sperm cells into my mother. of those 50 million, i won the race because if another sperm cell got there first, it would not be my particular genetic code, and my consciousness would not be created.

moreover, if my father had not "done" my mother on that night(?) but the night after or before or even hours earlier or later, i would not be here either.

multiply those odds by the fact that my father's AND mother's chance of being conceived were similar to mine. so if my mother and father were not the exact people they were, i would not be here.

then multiply that by 4 grandparents who likewise had the same odds of existing as me(a few levels simplified).

multiply those odds (odds against that is) all the way back through every generation in the history of my ancestry because they too won a multi million sperm swimming race to the egg, and if any generation in my eternal ancestry was not exactly who they were genetically, i would not be here.

multipy it all the way back through all the generations of the "apes" (i know--- loose terminology but i am not discussing paleontology), then back through the lemurs and further back through the proto mammals and back through all the generations (on my family tree (which is a simple "trunk" at this stage of the game)) of dimetrodons (first mammalian ancestor)


then back through the amphibians and then fish and ....etc... and then all the way back through all the single celled animal generations (that were my great^? grandparents) ...etc... all the way back to the primordial soup (assuming life started only once (although the plant and animal kingdoms do not seem at all related (but they have shareable genes none the less))).

all the generations of my forefathers are unbroken all the way back to the soup. every forefather of mine all the way back to the soup made it to be a parent.

as the process goes back, the chances of the environment being just right so the process of life could be catalyzed is also extremely slim.
the fact that all the elements needed to create me were in the vicinity of the growing pre-solar cloud that captured them, and that they are in quantities where the elements not required to create me are not in poisonous abundance to prevent my life is also very slim.

blah de blah de blah de blah... back through the deaths of the various stars that produced those elements, and their chances of coming into existence at the location they did and being effected by gravity just right to put them in a location where their demise was correct for the liberation of these elements is also astronomically slim. you can take it all the way back to the big bang. if the big bang did not happen just so, then all the causal effects would not have conspired in their infinite complexity to produce me.

i have a simple mind (not feeble but simple)
i think of a simple analogy (i am not going to try to quantify odds but just convey the general idea).
it is like taking a ticket in a lottery with a 1 in 800 septendecillion octodecillion chance of winning one ticket in another lottery that has a 1 in 40 nonillion tredecillion chance of wining 1 ticket in another lottery that has a 1 in 70 quintillion octillion chance of winning 1 ticket in another lottery ......etc....you get the idea.

the final ticket that you win (providing you won each of the earlier astronomically low odd lotteries) is a ticket that is a 1 in 50 million chance shot at living in this time, and i won all of those lotteries successively.

seemingly impossible but here i am.

wow. that is why i do not gamble. because i have used up an conceptually infinite amount of luck to even be here. if i had a child, it's chances of ever having lived are millions of times less than mine were (considering only 1 of my sperm cells will win the race to compete for impregnation).

so my life needs no purpose.

this is the same story i think for all people and all other lives living today too.


if i think what am i useful for, then the only thing i can think of is my animals love me and they like me to be here.

i suppose i am also useful to those who bludge (ask for) money from me.