SELF-ASSESSMENT IS PEACE

Self-Assessing the Purpose of Your Life: How Do I Live A Purposeful Life?

When we are talking about living a purposeful life, we are not talking about wealth! Jesus was not from a rich family, but right from the beginning he knew what he was on earth to do. At a very early age of twelve (12), he was found in the God’s temple (Luke 2: 42-49).

One of the secretes to living a peaceful life is never to consider yourself as hopeless or wasteful! What can help you to avoid this cancerous thought is using self-assessment to assess what your purpose in life is. Jesus at the age of 12 knows that his purpose in life was to do the work of God. So, when his parents found him in the temple and were complaining, he reminded them of his purpose on earth that; don’t they know that he has to do the work of his father? (Luke 2:49). A purpose in life helps us not to only remain focus but to also avoid seeing life as a competition. What then is a purpose? Bronk et al., (2009) define purpose as an aim that acts in the interest of the “larger world, on behalf of others or in pursuit of a larger cause”. This clearly distinguished it as a more globally oriented aim.

As seen in the image, a guest gave hopelessness as the reason of feeling like committing suicide (Hsu, 2013); people who have hopes will not be ready to kill themselves and others in suicide, thinking that they will go to heaven through that. Exodus 20:13 says: “Thou shalt not kill”. Surah 5:32 of the Holy Quran also says that, “If anyone has killed one person it is as if he had killed the whole mankind” (Arbil, 2007). This means that both Holy Books are against murder! If you kill in the name of God, you need to seriously self-assess your religious life to find out where your spirit comes from. Use self-assessment and prayer to identify your purpose in life, this will give you hope and peace to live peacefully with others too.

“Life without purpose is meaningless” (Kowalski, 2018). Living life without a purpose is hopeless; and hopelessness is an obstacle to personal, family, national and internal peace. There are theoretical and empirical literatures that suggest that, “Having a purpose in life contributes to optimal human development (Bronk et al., 2009; Bronk, 2005). Living a purposeful life is very important particularly amongst the youth as it contributes to “resilient” youths (Benard, 1991). Benson, (2006) revealed that purpose creates a developmental mind set for “Positive youth development”, whilst Shek, (1993) identified that “Youth with purpose are psychologically healthier than their peers”. The findings by these researchers were found to persist till adulthood as confirmed in studies by Crumbaugh & Maholick, (1967) and Kish & Moddy, (1989).

If youths who have purpose are healthier psychologically (Shek, 1993), then once you identify the purpose of your life; you are indirectly helping to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal Three (SDGs 3) says that; “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” (UN SDGs, 2016). Healthy people are happier and economically sound as confirmed by the saying from Carlson, (2016) that, “your health is your wealth”. Goal 8 of the UN SDGs talks about “Decent work and economic growth”, this will not be possible when the youth which are the majority are not healthy because they have no purpose in life and it has let to hopelessness. Bawumia, (2017), noticed that the 2015 SDG agenda fundamentally has a transformative element that combines sustainability, inclusiveness and financing for the first time. He revealed that commitment to the SDGs in Ghana will only be possible when there is a collective effort. These sustainability, inclusiveness and financing would be mere mockery if the citizenries are not healthy and peaceful.

Here are some of the ways that we can identify our purpose in life:

Identify Your Personal values – What are your values in life? In most cases, your personal values are directly linked to your purpose in life. Salva, (2017) on his blog said that “Purpose Leads to Hope and Hope Leads to Purpose”. So, identifying your values can help you in identifying what your purpose in life is.

Know Your Interest areas in life – Doing the things that we like on earth can help us identify our purpose in life. What we like and do are in most cases in line with what our purpose in life is. Forbes, (2016) in an article entitled: “Six Ways To Discover Your Life Purpose” revealed that you can identify the purpose of your life by following the hobbies of your life. Sometimes the things that we like doing can themselves serve as our purpose in life.

Value Education, Skills or talents – Education is undeniably very important in every aspects of humans’ lives. The best form of self-assessment is education and through education, one can identify his/her purpose in life. We can identify our skills and talents using education and the skills/talents that we have are mostly linked to our purpose in life. Doing our homework can help us identify our purpose (Forbes, 2016). This home work is talking not only about homework giving to us by our teachers or lecturers in school, but it is also talking about scanning through our lives (self-assessment). This can be done in so many ways by studying our environment.

Fear of God and Use Your Conscience – Live life to please God. The fear of God is the beginning of conscience; do things that will not let your conscience be judging later. Proverbs 9:10 says that we get wisdom when we fear God and this will also give us knowledge that we look for in life. When you truly fear God, your purpose in life will naturally always be living your life to please Him. This will give you peaceful mind and also help to live peacefully with others since you would not like to hurt your neighbor which goes against the greatest commandment that: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39).

Assess Your relation with others – Relationship with people like friends, family members, co-workers, co-tenants, church members, party members and so on can let you feel valueless in life and loose your main purpose. These same relationships can also let you feel valuable, accepted, and dignified; they can help you to identify your talents/skills and purpose in life.

Be Health Conscious – Sickness can make you feel hopeless, wasteful and loss your sense of purpose in life. To identify and live a purposeful life, develop health seeking behaviors and visit your health facility regularly to screen yourself for possible ailments even if you are not sick.

 These are just some examples of living a purposeful and hopeful life that can give you happiness, and peace. Do not just celebrate Christmas because others are celebrating, have a personal purpose. Christmas (the birth of Jesus) should not be seen as a celebration by only Christians, but the whole mankind. Jesus was not borne for only the Jews, but the whole mankind: Mohammed was not borne for only Muslims but the whole mankind. None of the Prophets in the Holy Books was borne for only some specific groups of people, but the whole mankind. The celebration of Jesus or Mohammed should always be seen as a period of unification but NOT division. This is one of the reasons why I am always proud to be a Ghanaian. Ghanaians do not discriminate during the celebration of any of these religious leaders – this should be the purpose for the whole world. I wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy Prosperous New Year in Advanced. Thank you for Reading!

Some References

Arbil, M. (2007). Faith and spirituality: Ten commandments from the Bible and Quran. Retrieved from https://www.islamicity.org/3096/ten-commandments-from-the-bible-and-quran/ on 23^rd December 2018 at 5:05PM.

Bawumia, M. (2017). Key Notes Address Delivered by H. E. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana On the Occasion of Ghana’s Roadmap Forum. Retrieved form https://www.modernghana.com/news/766847/key-note-address-... on 29^th March 2018 at 9:32AM.

Benard, B. (1991). Fostering resiliency in kids: Protective factors in the family, school and community. San Francisco: Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and development.

Benson, P., L. (2006). All kids are our kids: What communities must do to raise caring and responsible children and adolescents (2^nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Bronk, K., C. (2005). Portraits of purpose: A study examining the ways a sense of purpose contributes to positive youth development. Dissertation Abstract International. UMI 3187267.

Bronk, K., C., Lapsley, D., K., Talib, T., L., Finch, H., & Hill, P., L. (2009). Purpose, hope, and life satisfaction in three age groups. The Journal of Positive Psychology. 1-26. doi: 10.1080/17439760903271439.