The Purpose of Life, Part 2: Obstacles to Fulfilment

The jigsaw puzzle of modern life is complex, and the discussion group in Cambridge included people of a number of different cultures and nationalities.  In view of this, it might be expected that there would be quite a diverse and lengthy list of potential ‘external’ obstacles to achievement of our purpose.

Factors such as lack of financial resources were mentioned, as were societal and family pressures, and these can certainly be important in affecting our actions.

But the greatest discussion was about things much closer to home: Ourselves.

Amongst the ‘internal’ issues which people cited as being potential obstacles were regret, fear, anxiety, self-doubt, feelings of inferiority and indecision.

While some might feel that there is a certain ‘heaviness’ about this list, I felt that it was both illuminating and encouraging.

Illuminating because it showed that that the people taking part had a good degree of insight into themselves, and this is not usually something which is taught in school or by parents – and, indeed, not something which is widespread in the general population, where blaming others is often the view taken of problems.

I found it encouraging because the first step to developing and growing is becoming aware – it is for good reason that an important part of many meditation practices is the development of ‘mindfulness’.

The other thing which is encouraging is that, unlike many external factors which influence our lives, what is in our mind can come under our control, once we know how.

I will write more about this in Part 3 of this series.

Until then

Warmly,
Chris

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 4th, 2007 at 12:39 am and is filed under Meditation, Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.