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Few things in life are more painfully devastating than a feeling that one’s life is without purpose. Tragedies and successes come and go, and we hurt and we heal, but existing without purpose degrades the spirit and dramatically lowers quality of life. Though one may not even be aware of it consciously, or be willing to admit to it, a sense that we have come into the world randomly, accidentally and without some reason for being casts a shadow of fatalism and hopelessness over our lives. The suspicion that we are nothing but the product of a biological act and have no meaningful purpose can produce disheartening consequences, or worse. It might not be an exaggeration to say that much of the hatred, violence and disregard for the lives of others that we see in everything from road rage to third-world genocides might be traced directly to an inarticulate sense of purposelessness. Some find justification for indulging in sociopathic behavior through a conviction that life is meaningless and therefore unprincipled, an existential outlook which creates indifference to the well-being of others. Some, to fill that inner emptiness, gravitate toward social or religious extremes, finding therein a “cause” to support, often violently, that satisfies their need for purpose. In the Soviet Union, before the downfall of communism, there was a cynical saying: “The State pretends to pay us, and we pretend to work.” Even something so seemingly innocuous as feeling that one’s job is without
purpose can produce enough ineptitude, apathy, depression and attendant dysfunctions, such as alcoholism and drug abuse, to cause an entire cultural structure to break down. We can imagine how much emotional and mental
distress might be alleviated simply by discovering that each individual life has worth, and is woven inextricably into a common destiny. Obviously, to live at a high level of functioning and happiness it is necessary to believe that one is living on purpose.
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