Big Questions Rethought

It does not matter who you are, or where you come from, or how much wealth you have, we all share the same inquietudes:

Who are we? Where do we come from? What is our purpose in life?

Children ask these questions very early on, and so do the elderly, when they are confronted by our mortality. The rest of us go through life without paying much thought to them. No one can be blame for this. The moment we ask these questions our thought processes are interrupted entirely, creating a bottomless void within us. Naturally, we don't know what to do next, and our mind wanders away into the ordinary of every day life.

Some of us prefer such questions to be answered by others. It is easy, minimal effort is required, just faith and trust in that what they say is the truth.

The reason why these questions matter and why they affect everyone (young and old, rich and poor) is because they are part of the foundations of our inner-happiness. This is something we all seek.

Whether we are conscious of the fact or not, we all want to be happy. It is embedded in our beings from our childhood. Whether it is genetic or spiritual, it does not matter. At the end of the day we are constantly looking for a level peace, of inner-happiness.

In reverse, our primordial desire to be happy forces many of us to continually reassert and validate our inner self (i.e. who are we? where do we come from?) with ostensibly obvious answers related to faith, birth origin, ethnicity, and race.

A paradox is born within us. On the one hand we want to be happy. On the other our steadfast attachments to faith, birth origin, etc... (the perceived answers to the big questions) create dissatisfaction when we meet others who disagree with us.

To eliminate the contradiction, it helps to rethink the questions in a different way.

Who are we?

It is probably more empowering to ask: Who do you want to be? One important fact of life is that we are all responsible of our actions. Whether we want to accept it or not, we adults ultimately live with the decisions we make every day.

Where do we come from?

Does it matter? Our origins (whether a void, a country, or a super being's thought) do not limit us to where we can go. The limit lives in what we believe. At the end of the day, it is more relevant to ask: Where do we want to go? But, more importantly, how do we want to get there?

What is our purpose in life?

The answers of the first two questions in the end depend on this one. We all have a different purpose. And only each one of us can discover on our own. Fortunately, we are not without a compass, we have inner-happiness. Instead of asking what is our purpose, we could ask, what qualities of life bring us inner-happiness? This is a more manageable question, with potentially more tangible answers.