Many people get the feeling that everything in life is just an empty waste of time, totally futile. So much of our time spent on empty interactions, work to make money just to pay taxes and survive, etc. is just a waste of time and effort, given the inevitable end.
This is a very depressing way to live, and ironically, it often overtakes people who consider themselves spiritual or feel there is a higher purpose to life.
Problems are always problems when you only see a part of the whole. When you see the whole or, both sides of the coin, all problems dissolve because the solution, purpose or most importantly, the cause becomes evident.
Indeed, objectively and eternally speaking, all the things we do in life are ultimately pointless. Let’s consider the other side of the coin with an analogy. If you are a city dweller and someone offered you a truckload of manure, you would have no use for it and just turn away. However, if you are a farmer you would gratefully accept this gift.
One persons shit is another’s fertiliser.
What is the point of life? Anyone who tells you the reason for our existence with absolute certainty is probably selling something else along with it. No one knows for sure. The proof of the lack of clarity is that there are so many theories. How could so many different people be right about the ultimate reason for our existence?
The various religions range from a loving good God creator who created us and the world because he loves us, to an evil demigod creator who created this universe and us as a prison to hold the divine light so he can stay in control of all things and be an all powerful being with the only infinite attribute being his ego.
Be it a good God or an evil one, all traditions tell us the same thing about what we should do while here on earth, and that is to better ourselves. I like to live by the common denominator, what everyone agrees on. That to me, seems like a safe bet, to make myself a more conscious and better person in whatever way I can.
I think we can all agree that there are some basic qualities of character that we would do well with cultivating while eliminating others. Becoming more emotionally balanced, free of negative emotions such as anger, hate, jealousy, vengeance, greed, being self-directed rather than easily manipulated, emotionally independent, wise, present, this list goes on.
Life’s challenges can be summed up in the famous phrase of Friedrich Nietzsche; “What does not kill me, makes me stronger.”
It is also clear that in every challenge, we have an opportunity for exercise and gaining strength. The problem is, if we view everything as the final exam rather than just a training exercise, we panic.
If life is nothing more than a load of fertilizer, and we want to be farmers growing a crop of nutritious, healthy food, we can look at a human life in this way. Our birth equates to planting the seeds and death is harvesting the crop. Have you noticed that new shoots of grass or leaves are such a vibrant green, almost iridescent. That is a glorious life between birth and death, an iridescent one.
In-between, the field must be tended, and fertilized. The interesting thing about manure spread on the field is that once the crop sprouts due to the nutritious minerals we added to the soil, the fertilizer is gone without trace. All that is left is the wonderful crop.
During the period of germination, many weeds will come out. Our purpose in life is very simple. Do whatever you want to do for work as long as you earn enough money to keep you satisfied, and tend to your mental and emotional field, picking out the weeds and nurturing the good crop.
The soil of our mind is often rather dense as concrete, you may have noticed a few people who would fit that description. People who continually do what they know is bad for them instead of doing what they know is good for them, need a lot of fertilising.
See everything in life as a temporary but necessary process in order to end your days in a beautiful home overlooking a vibrant lush crop, what you have become through repeated fertilization. The results of your life will be a wonderful sight to remember and for others to cherish, all because you lived up to your neck in …
And now, the irrelevant, temporary BS of life suddenly becomes wonderful and you become free. See the objective versus subjective reality of what purpose is served rather than just the event itself. Know that this is necessary and all very temporary, soon to be forgotten once your mind and heart have germinated and sprouted into a wonderful human being bringing emotional and intellectual nutrition to everyone you meet.
Keep this little thought with you and you will find all problems and frustrations quickly dissolve:
When we are born, the seed is planted, then life covers us in shit so that we may grow. With an open heart and mind the crop is vibrant, and our harvest is when we die. With this view, we will be a joy to everyone including ourselves long before we die.
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A good analogy that makes the painful tasks in life more bearable, knowing they’re temporary and for a good cause (the betterment of our lives).
I actually had a final exam yesterday. For the first time ever, I felt zero anxiety going in to it. I felt every bit as happy to drive to that exam as I would driving to a friend’s house. That was a surprising and significant change as a result of your teachings.
The teacher opens the door, but the student must walk through.
Thank you for appreciating the teaching, but it was still your effort that is the ultimate reason for any changes you make.
This is truly insightful thank you David. What a happy way to make the entire life and all the dramas a very positive experience. I guess watching our actions closely, contemplating our life, having a good guide to develop our character and reading inspiring material – all of which you have suggested before – must provide the necessary rain and sun to really produce the healthiest crop.
I do often feel I’m on the tread mill/in the rat race just so my kids can do it for another generation.. On the other hand I sometimes feel another life calling me. I just need the courage to live that life. Courage for myself and to demonstrate to my children that there is a better way…
If you want to see change in the world, then you have to BE that change. However, sometimes, there can e a profound and far more powerful inward change without needing to make much of a change on the outside. Our life resides entirely in our own mind. That is where you experience life, through your own thoughts and feelings which you experience through your consciousness, thus, in your mind. If you change your state of mind, you change your world.
People would like others to keep doing what they’re doing, and to focus on band-aid solutions for their psychiatric well-being – coping mechanisms that keep people happy enough to keep going to their productive jobs. It’s good, but it’s still a way of keeping you well greased as a cog in the system. Even if the cog would rather not be a cog, it can’t choose. That’s the point – inward happiness is the only option.