{"id":28,"date":"2020-12-03T04:11:40","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T04:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/?p=28"},"modified":"2021-11-25T20:03:57","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T20:03:57","slug":"finding-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/2020\/12\/03\/finding-purpose\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding purpose and happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', sans-serif\">Natural purpose of humans is to work with others<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">\u201cWhenever you have trouble getting up in the morning, remind yourself that you\u2019ve been made by nature for the purpose of working with others, whereas even unthinking animals share sleeping. And it\u2019s our own natural purpose that is more fitting and more satisfying.\u201d\u2014MARCUS AURELIUS, M EDITATIONS, 8.12<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">If a dog spends all day in bed\u2014your bed, most likely\u2014that\u2019s fine. It\u2019s just being a dog. It doesn\u2019t have anywhere to be, no other obligation other than being itself. According to the Stoics, we humans have a higher obligation\u2014not to the gods but to each other. What gets us out of bed each morning\u2014even when we fight it like Marcus did\u2014is praxeis koinonikas apodidonai (to render works held in common). Civilization and country are great projects we build together and have been building together with our ancestors for millennia. We are made for cooperation (synergia) with each other.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Daily stoic<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', sans-serif;font-size: 12pt\">The purpose of life is to be happy<\/span><\/h3>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', sans-serif;font-size: 12pt\">\u201cIf you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.\u201d Marcus Aurelius<\/span><\/h3>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', sans-serif\">Purpose is what gets you out of bed each morning<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Marcus Aurelius believed that we each have a purpose; something we were created for. It is our duty to carry out that purpose. Here\u2019s a quote that reflects this:<\/span><\/li>\n<li>\n<p style=\"margin: 0px 0px 26px;padding: 0px;font-size: 1em\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><em style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\">\u201cEverything, a horse, a vine, is created for some duty. For what task, then, were you yourself created? A man\u2019s true delight is to do the things he was made for.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">In addition, Marcus Aurelius believed that your purpose is what gets you out of bed each morning. Here\u2019s Marcus Aurelius:<\/span><\/li>\n<li>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"margin: 0px 0px 26px;padding: 0px;font-size: 1em\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><em style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\">\u201cAt dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: \u2018I have to go to work\u2013as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I\u2019m going to do what I was born for\u2013the things which I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?\u2019<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0px 0px 26px;padding: 0px;font-size: 1em\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><em style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\">\u2013But it\u2019s nicer here\u2026<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0px 0px 26px;padding: 0px;font-size: 1em\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><em style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\">So you were born to feel \u2018nice?\u2019 Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Why aren\u2019t you running to do what your nature demands?<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0px 0px 26px;padding: 0px;font-size: 1em\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><em style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\">\u2013But we have to sleep sometime\u2026<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin: 0px 0px 26px;padding: 0px;font-size: 1em\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><em style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\">Agreed. But nature set a limit on that\u2013as it did on eating and drinking. And you\u2019re over the limit. But not of working. There you\u2019re still below your quota. You don\u2019t love yourself enough. Or you\u2019d love your nature too and what it demands of you.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em>People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\">eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they\u2019re really possessed by what they do, they\u2019d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts. Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort?<\/em>\u201c<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', sans-serif\">Bad actions are actually result of ignorance<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\">Unhappiness and evil are the result of ignorance. Thus, if someone is unkind\u2013 or acts boorishly\u2013 it\u2019s because they\u2019re not thinking clearly. Here\u2019s a passage from \u201cMeditations\u201d that makes this point:<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif\"><em>\u201c. . . Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness \u2013 all of them due to the offenders\u2019 ignorance of what is good or evil. But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine); therefore, none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading.\u2019\u201d<\/em> Marcus Aurelius<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', sans-serif\">You have two essential tasks in life: to be a good person and to pursue the occupation that you love.<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', sans-serif\">When God has a plan for you, it doesn&#8217;t matter who stays against it<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Natural purpose of humans is to work with others \u201cWhenever you have trouble getting up in the morning, remind yourself that you\u2019ve been made by nature for the purpose of working with others, whereas even unthinking animals share sleeping. And it\u2019s our own natural purpose that is more fitting and more satisfying.\u201d\u2014MARCUS AURELIUS, M EDITATIONS, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9898,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9898"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}