What is the purpose of life?
This question haunted me for a couple of days after my student suggested this as our next topic in Values. What do I really know about life’s purpose?
I took it upon myself to teach Values beyond the limits of the textbook. I am in no way a Values teacher—if anything, I am an English teacher. Values isn’t even graded. Most teachers would take it lightly, but it wasn’t the case for me. I wanted to teach my students everything that I knew about life. Fortunately, they enjoyed our short Values sessions. I taught them about kindness, sincerity, perseverance, respect, and how important it is to first know oneself towards creating more meaningful and healthy relationships with other people.
When once I had run out of wise words, I asked them to suggest topics that they would want to delve deeper into. Amid the noise of the students from buzzing amongst themselves about the topic that they would suggest, one particular voice caught my attention. It was from one of my students who fearlessly asked, “What is the purpose of life?” It was so striking a question that even I myself couldn’t answer it outright. It was a question that even I have not even asked myself. What good is it indeed to live well without even knowing the purpose? For what reason should they apply the principles to right living when the purpose isn’t clear?
It made me realize that many people are quite lost in their lives because they have no purpose at all. I once heard from our pastor that a life without purpose is worse than death. But is there a single purpose for everybody? It was something that I had to ponder on over and over again whenever I had the chance to be alone with just my thoughts.
After much introspection and meditation, I realized that life’s purpose is relative. Whatever it is that makes one’s life worth living is one’s purpose in life. If there was anything generic that I could teach my students, it was that life has one meaningful purpose, and that is for everyone to learn how to love.
Love encompasses all rules and laws. No offense can be committed when genuine love is present. There’s no way to be wrong when genuine love is truly understood and applied. But then, that raises a new question: what is genuine love?
The reason why people find it hard to see the meaning of life is because they do not know what love truly is. Life and love cannot be separated. Life without love is death—just pure darkness. Love is the summary of all virtues. Love is the foundation of all the shades of kindness that there is.
Until one has learned what love is, one will never see the point in living. It will never be easy. But finding it is worth it. We are in this world to find this one treasure: love—and in it is the reflection of the one we’ve always been trying to figure out:
LIFE.