A concept I have recently been struggling to grasp is human existence and the purpose of being alive. A crop of questions keep me troubled: why do I care about success so much if I don’t even know the purpose of my existence? How can I justify wanting success if I don’t have a concrete answer for the purpose of my existence? I fill my days with tasks, projects and errands, yet I remain unsure what this lifestyle’s ultimate goal is. In my current frame of mind, I hold that we, as humans, do not know who we are. We do not see the purpose of our existence, the planet, or the meaning of being alive. Life is both remarkable and arbitrary, and the world is such a complex, nuanced and vast network of consciousness full of ambition, love, hope, pain, discovery and torment.
We live through sets of doctrines and systems by which we can measure ourselves. I heavily subscribe to these social orders and consider accomplishments very important. However, I cannot overcome the feeling that they are arbitrary and meaningless.
With this worry, I approached my 86-year-old grandfather, Robert. I sought to understand how he felt about his long life and if he had found any meaning in being human thus far. Robert’s answer was not what I had anticipated at all — to my surprise, it is very closely aligned with my current feelings. However, he is experiencing them from the other side of life, just as I begin mine.
In the final chapters of life, Robert has found himself reflecting heavily on his past life experiences. He admitted that he was not sure what to make of my thoughts, too, and that questioning human consciousness and existence had not occurred to him. He was not taught to question the purpose of life or the existence of humans. However, he did resonate with my feelings of wanting to busy up each spare moment and the desire for success. While he is a proud father of three, he feels his ambitions were never taken seriously or treated with importance. With that, he feels he did not become the person in life that he wanted to be:
“I kept reaching for the stars, but they kept moving further and further away.”
After being made to leave school at 14 to begin working as a tailor’s apprentice to help support his family, Robert struggled to find a job he was passionate about in an extremely troubling economy. While his family life was happy (and he is incredibly loved by everyone in his life), his ambitions remained unfulfilled due to a lack of opportunity. This is a perspective that I find fascinating. With so much success in his personal life, my grandad feels as if he still could have achieved more merely because he was not financially successful:
“I know I was capable of so much more and that life had more to offer. I just did not have the confidence in the end.”
He struggles with the lack of recognition for all his hard work and talent. He does not have a certificate or a lot of financial success to measure his lifelong skills and dedication. This lack of recognition has left him feeling like he accomplished nothing. Of course, this is far from the reality of his life—he is an extraordinarily creative and mechanically-minded man and the most incredible father and grandfather. There is nothing he wouldn’t do for his family. However, this does not mean that he feels otherwise, and he still has an internal feeling of being underwhelmed by what his life has resulted to be.
When it comes to my feelings of success and why I feel the need to achieve them, I appeal to others to validate my effort and tell me that I am doing a good job. Perhaps this is how my grandad functions, too; he did not get the validation he needed throughout life, and he now feels overlooked and underwhelmed by life.
In addition, there is a strong link between success and purpose, and really, by charging towards our ambitions, we are actually seeking purpose. We, as individuals, create meaning for ourselves since we do not have a concrete answer to the purpose of life. On reflection, a lot of my fears about meaning are at the root of my fear of being forgotten or that I will feel similar to my Grandfather when I am his age. Accomplishment to my grandfather is not about ego; it is simply about having pride, being remembered, valued, seen, and truly cherished.
Going into this discussion, I thought I would be given ease and perhaps wisdom about taking life slowly—and perhaps I was hoping that he would tell me that I was being absurd. Instead, I was urged by my grandfather to seize every day, every opportunity to learn, grow, and experience life. Now, despite all that he has, he still has this nagging feeling that he could have done more, and he does not want that for me or his children. He has become very aware of his growing fragility and resents the ageing experience.
I have yet to understand the purpose of existence in general— but I reckon I can overcome my fears about what to do in the meantime. Having ambition or goals to pursue is not arbitrary at all; it is an integral part of self-growth, identity and, most importantly, purpose. I believe I was previously consumed by the worry that all ambition was vain and unnecessary. I was seeking an answer that would give me my purpose; I now realise that I have to create it for myself.
As I begin my adult life, I hold this interview with my grandfather close to my heart, reassuring me that I am not meaningless but that my life is given meaning and purpose by becoming the person I wish to be. To not would fill me with regret. He gifted me with wisdom that I needed to hear. Ambition is not in vain; it is energising and creates individual purpose. If he were to redo his life, Robert swears he would be even more ambitious, less self-conscious and more daring.
When I enquired what he thought the purpose of his life had been thus far, he gave a simple yet moving response;
“To support and help others.”
By Charlotte Patten, Features Contributor
