 What's the meaning of life? It's a huge question, and I'd like to give you a couple of ideas in this short video that may help you understand your answer to that question more deeply. So I'd like to suggest that the meaning of life, or we could say the purpose of life, can be seen from three perspectives. Now, before I go to the three perspectives, I want to first address the question people say, purpose. When they ask the question, what's my life's purpose, they're usually asking, what am I supposed to be doing for work? And I've come to see that using the word purpose and talking about it in terms of your career is not actually that helpful. And the reason is because when you think about, am I supposed to be doing this job or supposed to be doing this business, it's very tough to, you're looking for some kind of divine sign, and you can, as a human being with a very complex brain, you can easily trick yourself into thinking, oh, I got a divine sign for this or a divine sign for that. So I want to give you a more helpful word when it comes to thinking about your career purpose, which is the word alignment or fit. So you look at career, like you would look at buying a pair of shoes. When you buy a pair of shoes, you don't think what's my purpose in relation to pairs of shoes. You think, oh, I buy a pair of shoes so it fits my foot well. It's a good fit. And it also fits my style well. It's all about alignment and fit when it comes to career. So in what career will I be socially happy that fulfills my financial needs? That allows me to sense that I'm contributing to the world in a larger way. So that fit is a better word, because then you can keep improving the fit in your career more in whatever business you offer. But in this video, I actually want to talk about purpose in terms of life, because I think that's a more important question that if you get clear on, will help you make choices that are wise in terms of your career, your health, relationships, etc. So as I mentioned, I think there are three perspectives when thinking about life purpose. Let me start with the middle perspective, which you might say is for the next several years of your life. What is your life's purpose? And I want to use some science research into what makes human beings happy. What gives us a profound sense of well-being? And I think we could all probably agree that the purpose of life, at least is very intimately tied to having a sense of well-being and a deep profound sense of well-being. So what produces that deep profound sense of well-being? Well, one body of research by Tom Rath and Gallup, the famous organization that takes lots of global surveys, they've discovered from surveying, I think it was tens of thousands of people in dozens of countries, and they collected the research and found that a profound sense of well-being tends to happen when an individual has all five of these areas. They feel a sense of social well-being, meaning they have friends or family they get together with on a regular basis. And as human beings, we need that social bond, especially physical, physical being together with other people, sharing hugs, sharing laughs, being with in person with other people on a regular basis. That brings us a level of social well-being. Physical well-being is health. So if you are suffering physically, it's going to be very hard to have a profound deep sense of well-being. Not that it's impossible, but it's more challenging. Community is feeling connected to what's happening in your local area and feeling like you're contributing to the well-being of your local community gives you as a human being a sense of overall well-being. Career, you feel like your career is good fit for you. We've already mentioned that. And then financial, if you're struggling with money, it's hard to have a sense of overall well-being. But if you are okay financially, then it's more easy. So you could say in the middle term perspective of 1 to 5 to 10 years, you can be working on these things. I want to give you another perspective also from science, which is Maslow's hierarchy. So what is this? This is basically the idea that if you want to get to, this says self-actualization by the way, it's hard to read. If you want to get to self-actualize, to become a self-actualized person, I would even say a self-transcendent person, to think of others more than you think of yourself. It's very helpful to first start with having your physical needs met. So make sure you're well-fed, make sure you're not scared for your own security. Well, you have enough water and food. That's really at sleep. As you can see here, food, water, sex, sleep, excretion, et cetera. The second level in Maslow's hierarchy is security. You don't feel, you feel safe in your neighborhood, in your home. And when you're walking out in your neighborhood. The third one is social. So friendship, family, as I mentioned in the previous model as well. Self-esteem. You feel like you are worth something. And I think career really fits in here. Career and I would even say finances has something to do with that. I think finances and career and relationships has something to do with and actually I would say even community has a sense of social and esteem. And then finally, from there, you can think about the bigger questions and transcend your own needs to think a lot more about other people. Start doing more philanthropy and volunteering, charity work, et cetera. Not that you have to be wealthy, but you have to have enough. That's the key. Enough of these things. Not an abundance necessary, but enough of these things. And I think that's one of the purposes of life is to figure out what is enough without gorging yourself on really any of these areas. Because if you gorge yourself on any of these areas, you start to feel like a self-centered person because that's your conscience telling you that there's something not quite right here. So that's the middle perspective of life in terms of several years. There's also a much longer perspective of life in terms of your entire life. What is the purpose of your entire life? And I'm going to suggest to you that it is the pursuit of virtues, the pursuit of virtues. And these are examples of some virtues. Kindness, gentleness, diligence, forgiveness, generosity, faithfulness, courage, mindfulness, honesty, humility, patience. I would say love and wisdom as well. And the reason why I say that that's the lifetime purpose is because I believe that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. And in the biggest scheme of things, your spiritual, eternal consciousness, virtues are really far more important than whether you had enough, whether you had money, whether you had friends, whether even whether you were healthy, whether you had a great career or involved in your community. I would say that these things are actually a way for you to develop your virtues. Does that make sense? So the ultimate purpose is developing virtues through your pursuit as a human being of wanting to feel well. And finally, so sort of setting your goals, you set your goals to try to develop enoughness in these areas knowing that it's really not about these things, it's really about the bigger picture of virtues. Now I want to give you a final third perspective of life purpose, third lens, which is every single moment. And I would say every single moment you can develop moment by moment virtues. And I would say these three are really nice way of thinking about moment by moment virtues. Mindfulness, gratitude, excellence. Now I would say you could probably choose one of these as something you really resonate with to live in a moment by moment way. You either live with more mindfulness this moment, next moment, next moment. You can think about mindfulness or you could, if you could, if maybe gratitude resonates with you more in every moment you try to say I'm so lucky that I get to be doing whatever I'm doing right now. So many people can't. Or the fact that I'm in this life, I've been given this opportunity of this life to do all these kinds of different things. Nothing is a chore. Be grateful for everything that you get to do. And the third perspective is excellence. Anything you do, you bring excellence to it. And I want to end this video with a quote that I found recently, which is to put your heart, your mind and your soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. And I love this perspective because it speaks to, you know, gratitude. It speaks to mindfulness. It speaks to excellence. It speaks to the virtues. And if you pursue these things moment by moment, as you think about the middle perspective of your life of yes, you're trying to have enough money, you're trying to have a good career, you're trying to be involved in your community, so you can keep improving your community. You try to be healthy and you try to have enough friends. As you pursue these things, you're thinking about the moment by moment gratitude, mindfulness and excellence. And if you do this, you will actually achieve your lifetime purpose of developing your virtues. So I hope that's helpful. I'm always open to your comments and your own perspectives. I welcome you to comment below. And until the next video, be well.