We Just Need to Survive

The purpose of life is to survive. The universe has been creating billions of living beings and expects most of them to survive for a decent amount of time. In this age of Instagram, we are often motivated to find the “true” purpose of life. Motivational quotes flood our message boxes every morning that encourage us to find the purpose of life. I searched a lot and concluded that most of us are not unique or exceptional. Our only purpose is to be born and then die. In between, we can procreate, have a career, find a job, travel, and do other things. Honestly, even if we don’t do that it wouldn’t affect the universe. As Sadhguru rightly said, we are just a popup on the huge screen of the Universe and we unnecessarily take ourselves too seriously. The Universe, unlike the Earth is not even affected by Global warming or plastic abuse. The Universe wouldn’t get affected even if the Earth with all its stupid megalomaniac, narcissistic creatures get destroyed. Even the Earth is a slightly bigger popup. So instead of focusing on too many idiotic things, we should primarily focus on one thing “survival”. As Darwin rightly said only the fittest will survive.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

100 years later, all our life events would hardly make any difference to anybody. 500 years later, even the so called great men and women will hardly matter. Does the man who created fire matter to us anymore? even though we shamelessly use fire or fire equivalent throughout the day. In a nutshell, we should stop being so self obsessed and just try to live and breathe. As my yoga teacher says, the only thing that matters is your breath. Yes, because my breathing tells me that I am alive. So just keep breathing.

There was a time when I seriously believed that I have a greater purpose in life. Perhaps change the world, bring peace, help the starving kids in Africa, or some other purpose that the Beauty Queens talk about. However, with age, I realized that my only purpose is to survive, complete my life cycle and die. Surviving has never been easy. Our primitive ancestors had to fight every single day to survive. They had to fight to find food, shelter, protection from harsh weather, and wild animals to survive. Their life expectancy was less. With advancement, our life expectancy has increased because we do not have to fight for survival. As fighting is an integral part of our “survival instinct” we started finding new ways to fight. So we invented relationships, politics, jobs, etc. Unless we are in the armed forces, we no longer literally fight. Nevertheless, we are constantly fighting to survive. Sometimes we are just manufacturing fights.

Our role in this mortal life is to breathe and survive. We need to just do that. Everything else is just a frill. So if my short skirt is irritating my distant aunt, let her get irritated because her feelings do not hamper my survival. However, if my short skirt antagonize someone who can kill me for my skirt, maybe I need to do something to protect myself. In a nutshell, choose to respond to only those that upset your survival. Rest everything can take a chill pill. I wish, I could tell this to my mom that “yeh log kya kahenge” is just a stupid thing. It doesn’t affect our survival unless some khap panchayat gets involved.

Throughout her life, my Mom was focused on things that I consider useless. And her entanglement with all these useless things affected her mental and physical health so much that she died premature. Had she not focused on all these things, probably she would have lived a more fulfilling life. Due to all these unnecessary worries, she never became happy and content with her own life.

Focus only on things that are aligned to your survival. So focus on your health both mental and physical. Remember, once your days are over you will not take away anything. So focus on earning only that much wealth that you need to survive comfortably. Do not get a cardiac arrest accumulating excess wealth that you will not be able to spend in your lifetime. Avoid relationships that will drain your energy. I see so many incidences where a person commits suicide due to a breakup or divorce. Do not do that. Stop believing in the stories of true love and soulmate. Our primitive ancestors never bothered about soulmates. They would have used another person as a human shield if need be. Be selfish unapologetically and focus on your own healthy survival. Remember, all our emotions, instincts, reasoning, and problem solving is aligned with only one thing, our survival. So focus and thrive to survive and just cut the clutter.

Advertisement