My purpose is to Know , Love and Serve God above all things in this world and to love[ in the broadest sense]all my bothers and sisters[Mankind]as myself.To be a Christian this is the foundation of ones life.
On a serious note, I had no idea about purpose or why I exist until I had children. While I still have problems verbalizing what that means, those with children understand.
AB - sorry about your friends. That's an awful lot of loss to deal with. It's particularly sad to see so many entertainers and comics who have become suicidal. They could entertain others, but apparently couldn't come to terms with themselves... And then there are the losses no one wants. I just lost one of my students in a car accident this weekend. (Then there was my father earlier this fall, though he was middle-aged and it was of natural causes.) Makes you wonder how much time you have left. I still can't believe my student was taken away from us so soon... he was only about 20... In terms of <b>purpose</b>, I have the Christian worldview. So I believe that we are here to fulfill part of God's plan and to lift up others, not merely to make ourselves happy. (One of the things I'm struggling with right now is whether personal happiness can even enter into the equation... hopefully, to some extent, it can.) It feels a lot better to focus on others than just on that ever-elusive "pursuit of happiness". However, we do have personal needs. See below, as the following quote is very important: Soooooo true. I spent most of 10 years focusing my friendship energy on a bunch of negative people. They would use you when they needed to, then drop you just because it suited their ego. But, when they needed you, they would make you feel so important that you couldn't turn it down. They were sometimes there for you - just enough to give you hope - but usually not. I'm out of my codependent phase now and have let these people drop by the wayside (which they did on their own once they saw I wasn't their mindless follower, even though I was still willing to be friends). But it's too late to get those years of my life back. And some relationships are still with me and probably always will be, even though they're draining and I don't know how I'm going to deal with them for the whole rest of my life. So be careful whom you choose to spend your time with. On the <b>positive</b> side, at least I know how to identify the positive people now. Though (at least in my position/profession) people come in and out of your life often, and you may not be able to keep them in your life even if you want to. (I'm thinking of a situation where someone has helped me out a lot more than they'll ever know, though I may not see this person much after this semester.) I just hope I can be helpful to others in that same way. I'm working on it. I picked a "people profession" in hopes that it would turn out that way...
