Why am I here? What am I here to do?

If there is one question that has plagued man ever since he developed a consciousness, it is this
one: Why am I here? Entire lives have been spent in either the search for the answer to this
dilemma or even worse, trying to push one's answer onto others as the right one. Some people even say that we are all here for a divine purpose, that every person's life is an arrow with a head that points in some direction, and only by accepting fate, destiny and a higher power, we can truly discover the purpose of our existence. To every one of these people I say, "Shut Up!!"

George Carlin, a great comedian and an even better thinker in my opinion, once said that we are all here because the earth needed plastic! Earth didn't have the time to make it herself, wanted to delegate it to someone, and so she created us humans. Thus the purpose of our existence is to make plastic for earth! Laughable though it may sound, it is a revealing insight into the stupidity and enormous lack of humility on our part that we think that all the billions of galaxies filled with gazillions of stars in our universe and all the fantastic and unbelievably diverse variety of creatures on planet earth were created just to give us a beautiful starry sky and a nice place to live in! That's exactly what most religions make out our world to be, a place created by Mr God so that we could appreciate his supreme benevolence for such a wonderful gift and remain ever thankful to him, spending our lives in eternal gratitude.

I have a very simple answer for the quest for the purpose of our existence: There is no such purpose! Our lives are what we make them to be, our destiny lies in our own hands. Why is this such a difficult thing for people to accept? Then are we like boats with sails but no compass you ask me? Yes, its true that our lives by themselves have no purpose, but it is in our hands to give our lives a purpose. YOU, yes you, are the rudder of your ship! You decide what you want to do with your life. Since every action we take affects people around us in a myriad of ways, some of which we know about and comprehend and some of which we don't, it is truly upto YOU what you want to do with your life.

If you decide that you want to help people through your life, and take part in social service, then that could be the purpose of your life. If just being a good human being and a good son or daughter, a good wife/husband or a good employee is what you are willing to do, then that could also be the purpose of your life. One doesn't have to make a huge difference to the world around them. If you could touch even one person's life, give him/her one better day of their lives through your actions (or lack of them, in some cases), then yours was definitely a life worth living. Life isnt worse for the lack of a purpose, its actually better because then we all are truly our own masters, the captains of ships that only we know the destinations of. Like Mother Teresa once said, "I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.".