I think that over the years I have been guided more by philosophy than therapy. For the past couple of years I have seriously asked why I was born. I mean, do I have a purpose? If the Buddhists and Ecclesiastes are right, life is not much more than suffering from beginning to end. (To quote a common saying, Life stinks and then you die). Living with a mental illness piles on even more suffering. God knows I was close to [suicide] many, many times. And I don’t exactly believe that God is responsible for the over-burden, either. If God is good then He’s not responsible for the suffering. (Or is He? I just don’t know. I don’t swallow the teachings of the religions blindly. I have been told about a long suffering mental patient, a friend of a friend, who questions God’s goodness. It’s entirely understandable. I have heard some people even say that God must be a sadist!). Yet I think that there is one thing a person can choose to do, if there really are choices, that makes life worth living. That is, devote your life to doing what it is you love to do.
Let me repeat that, FIND OUT WHAT IT IS IN LIFE YOU LOVE TO DO AND DO IT!! And I'm not talking about what your parents told you to do, or your teachers or priest or rabbi or guru said you had to do, or your therapist or anybody else in this society. Only you alone can know what it is you genuinely love to do. (One hopes that that is learned early in life rather than later. But it is never too late to find out). I am not talking about what one is “supposed” to do, or about what one “ought” to do. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I am referring to what one GENUINELY loves to do. Finding out what one loves to do in life, and helping us do it, is the purpose of education!
I wonder if anyone out there has ever thought about this. Education is not about learning skills to get a job. Education is not about learning skills to perform repetitious work. Education ought to be a self search for one’s love, for one’s joy (same things). The process of discovering that which we love to do is a process of self-discovery. If we truly know what it is we love to do and do it, we know ourselves (and know the world a bit). It doesn’t matter what it is you love. You can love higher learning or driving a cab. It doesn’t matter! As long as you love what you do. Don’t get hung up on society’s status judgments. For I tell you, doing what you love is the road to happiness and sanity.
And while I am at it, one must understand oneself. “Know thyself” is from the Greeks. One must not only know, one must “be oneself.” It doesn’t matter what we are, be it inwardly beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, refined or crude, loving or hateful. Be that which you are. Don’t pretend to be something you’re not! You’d just be fooling yourself and you'll have no chance that way!
Here’s wishing you all find your love. Life’s too short not to. And you only go around once. If you don’t yet know what it is you love, you have some exploring and experimenting to do. Good luck to you all.