Friday, December 07, 2012

My thoughts on... The unexamined life

I know I can't be alone being fascinated by Socrates' statement that "The unexamined life is not worth living."  Think about it, he's not saying the unexamined life is less enjoyable or less meaningful, but that its not even worth living!!

This is because Socrates believed that the purpose of human life was personal and spiritual growth. How can any of us grow without a full understanding of who we are and what our true nature is.  This can only be be discovered by taking the time to examine and reflect upon our lives. 

This examination of our lives should and will reveal patterns of behavior. We learn to understand the subconscious programming of our minds, the way we determine how to live our lives. Unless we become aware of these patterns, much of life is just unconscious repetition.

Leo Rosten states "The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all." If I'm not paying attention to the manner in which I'm living life, how do I fulfill such a goal?  If the purpose of life was to simply be happy, I don't think it would be to hard to achieve.  By diligently examining my thoughts and actions, I can improve and develop and grow.

This blog does a great job of  helping me examine my life.  I can reflect and see areas in which I need to mature.  I can look back on situations and think I'll never let myself get involved in something like that again.  Adversely, I can recognize when I've done something well and strive to achieve similar results. 

I'm going to make a daily effort to live an examined life, as I know I want a life that's worth living.

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