Qual è il tuo scopo nella vita? Fontana Editore

What is your purpose in life?

Rocco Fontana

Hello everyone! Today I want to ask you a question that has been asked since the early years of life: "What do you want to do when you grow up?" But this time the question is a little different: "What is your purpose in life?" Yes, I know, it's a pretty heavy question, but I think it's important to stop for a moment and reflect on what we really want from life. So, take a few minutes for yourself and choose to share your primary and deep desire with me. Are you ready to define your life, the real one? Then, let's begin!

What is your purpose in life? Define your life, the real one, the primary and deep desire.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” We were all asked the question at an early age. It burst into our bright, childish reality, a cliché, but for you, who lived in your little experiential bubble, it had the disruptive explosion of a bomb. You wanted to be an astronaut, a doctor, a teacher, a princess, a truck driver... save the world: it seemed easy to find a purpose in life . What a granite certainty! What a feeling of fullness!

“A child can always teach an adult three things:
1. To be happy for no reason.
2. To always be busy with something.
3. To demand with all his strength what he desires.”
Paulo Coelho

Then you started school. You probably don't remember when you put your Purpose aside, you don't even remember having had your Purpose. It was a slow and gradual process. At a certain point you had too much to do to integrate, to conform, to be accepted by others. Your voice began to change, you experienced the first disturbances, you had to satisfy the expectations of mom and dad. You needed to be recognized: "Look at me, love me..."

It would be stupid, wouldn't it? To spend your whole life wishing for something and never taking action.
(From the movie Blow)

Over time, “goals” have taken the place of your Purpose.

Hop! Let's jump forward in time.
Lying on your back on the bed, eyes on the ceiling. You have tried to be a good husband or wife; you have tried to like a mediocre job that gives you security, a new car, a few friends that survived adolescence, a few debts, a few children. You have begun esoteric, spiritual, and formative studies, out of hunger and thirst, without having arrived at anything special.

You are the eldest of 13 brothers, who, with dismay, you count and recount, but you always see only 12 brothers. Until you sit on an old stool to ponder where the thirteenth brother has ended up: the stool breaks and you hit your bottom forcefully on the floor, remembering him.

Then maybe you realize that The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is not 42! (See “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams.)

Then perhaps you understand that The Fundamental Question has three sides:
“Who are you? / What is your purpose? / What truly makes you happy?”;
but it always expresses the same meaning:

“A deafening silence.”

I had a choice: I could be the me he wanted, or the me who laughed at the me he wanted.
(Tiziano Terzani)

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