Edmund Kerendian

I’m sitting at a computer desk in my room on the 11th floor of one of thousands of similar looking apartment buildings in this city thinking about what our purpose on this planet is for. Were we actually put here by some divine being to serve a higher purpose or was everything put here in a harmonious symphony by some random coincidences that had no prior planning?  One can argue that there really is no purpose and were all just small parts of this gigantic rat race we call life.  I’m not here to answer that question…

To keep our mind off this eternal unanswered question we try to give ourselves some meaning by instilling some small purposes in our lives.  For example, the accountant in that office building down the street has his mind on financial numbers, while the carpenter on the other side of town has his mind on his buildings project.  We call these purposes we assign ourselves careers. These careers are what keep our minds from wandering off and asking the question “why”.  Why am i here? Why am i doing what I’m doing? Why am i breathing?  Most of these “why” questions don’t really have answers, and that’s why we just have to accept them as they are and keep crunching our numbers, however meaningless they may seem.

In the end, i believe man needs this purpose.  I’m not talking about the “universal purpose of humans on this planet” that everyone asks about.  I’m talking about keeping ourselves busy with the small things, the aspects of our lives that we take for granted like our jobs, our friends, our families, and even the notion of love.   These ideas of belonging, security, and affection help us cope with the fact that most of the reasons of “why we are alive” are unknown to us.  That’s why i ask those that read this post today to cherish every aspect of your lives whether it be your sucky job or your needy girlfriend, because when its all over you will be able to look back and say “my life actually had a purpose”.