Purpose.

One's purpose for one's actions is such a big deal nowadays. With the idea of everything being at your fingertips, but with time getting shorter and shorter, the scarcity of available action is much more pronounced, and we are forced to make less and less "useless" decisions.

Everything we do has to, one way or another, forward a cause we believe in.

Growing up in the Philippines, I've been trained to have family, God and "nation" (in the loosest of ways) be pretty much my purpose. When I studied, I did it for the betterment of family, God and "nation". When I did good, I offered it to family, God and "nation". Conversely, when I failed, I offered it to family, God and "nation". Even acts which were directed for my betterment were somehow linked to a greater good of, you guessed it, ____ ____ and ____.


Before moving here to the US of A, I was repeatedly cautioned to never lose my purpose. People here are supposedly self-centered and arrogant. They put themselves, and only themselves above all others. For some reason, this was supposed to explain why grandparents were in homes for the aged, why children sued their parents, why politics is so taboo.


It's been more than 6 months since I've gotten here, and I must say, I'm beginning to see the appeal to both sides. This does not mean in any way that I'm about to disown God or my family or whatever, but what I mean is that I've come to embrace the reality and fulfillment of doing things for myself. My economics teacher told us about Adam Smith (is that his name? I was probably not paying attention) and the "invisible hand", and how we really only want to forward our own self interests- any notion of helping society is just a nice residual effect. Is it really so bad to put myself up first? If I operate within the constraints of my body, and considering that this is my life, who should I value? To argue the God side, if God entrusts me with my body, do I not have the prerogative to do as I wish, so long as I know it's not bad?

Of course, it's never a fulfilling experience to ask questions without experiencing some analogous events. I offer 3.

1.) going to Disneyland by myself and enjoying it.
2.) walking roughly 3km during my breaks to this nice lake near my school. It's really relaxing. Nobody knows I go there, except for the strangers whom I pass, and I don't really feel like telling anyone.

and

3.) saying no when I don't feel like it (ooh, isn't this a cryptic sentence?)

I would elaborate, but I choose to excercise my decision on the third point.

Have I lost my purpose to gain another? Have I let go of offering my acts and talents to family, God and "nation" and have redirected my purpose to only my personal wellbeing and betterment? Is this shift in purpose necessarily a bad one? Does "purpose" even sound like a word anymore? If I said porpoise instead, would it make any difference?

Why, hello there.

Maybe we're all just drifting somewhere in the Pacific on this. Maybe, even, behind all this is some kind of cosmic joke reminding us that there is no higher power- we live by mere anomaly which we have taken to have meaning and, *gasp, gasp* purpose.