Our happiness does not depend on having 'purpose.'

"Before I sought enlightenment, the mountains were mountains and the rivers were rivers. While I sought enlightenment, the mountains were not mountains and the rivers were not rivers. After I attend enlightenment, the mountains were mountains and the rivers were rivers." Zen Proverb

When I first came to United States of America, I used to hear people say 'they are trying to find themselves,' and I did not get it. How can a person lose themselves? And for some strange reason that actually happen, how would they know where to find it and how would they recognize it? Believe me the statement itself is confusing but when you add the cultural difference it became impossible. Now that I have been here for many years, you would think I would understand things better but I still don't.

When we say 'we don't know what our purpose in life is' what we mean is that we are not where we thought we should be or we have not achieved our financial goal. It also implies that somewhere in the future we will find something that will make us happy.  And until then we will not be happy. We fool ourselves into thinking that the currency of unhappiness will buy us happiness. That we have to “pay our dues”, go on some sort of ride, and then get dropped off at a big location called our “purpose” where now we can be happy. Life is a journey and whatever we do in-between life and death is our purpose.

There is an Ethiopian saying 'Deha mogne new, motun yemegnal. Elefe silu, elfe yegegnal''A poor person is a fool for wanting to die, if he can wait a little longer he might achieve his dreams.' There is no age limit on success; the possibility of achieving our dreams when we are 90 years old is the same as when we are 23 years old. You can say but Konjit, the number of years we are going to enjoy that success is higher if we achieve it when we are younger, to certain extent you are right but who is to say you would not die at 24 years old? That being said, I want us to read and see the number of people who have achieved their dreams in different age group.

Raymond Chandler, the most successful memoir novelist of all time, wrote his first novel at age 52. But he was young compared with Frank McCourt, who won the Pulitzer for his first novel, Angela’s Ashes, written when he was 66. And, of course, Julia Child was a young 50 when she wrote her first cookbook.

Stan Lee created Spiderman when he was 44.

Jack Cover invented Taser when he was 50 and he didn't sell a single one until he was 60.

Tim Zagat, who likes restaurants, quit his job as a lawyer in order to create the book of review 'Zagats' when he was 51.

Harry Bernstein was a total failure when he wrote his best selling memoir, “The Invisible Wall”. His prior 40 (Forty!) novels had been rejected by publishers. When his memoir came out he was 93 years old. A quote from him: “If I had not lived until I was 90, I would not have been able to write this book, God knows what other potentials lurk in other people, if we could only keep them alive well into their 90.”

Peter Roget, a medical doctor, became obsessed with words that have similar meaning.  He wrote Thesaurus at the age of 73.

 The inventor of Ramen noodles didn't invent it until he was 48 years old.

Charles Darwin was a little bit “off” by most standards. He liked to just collect plants and butterflies on remote islands in the Pacific. And then he wrote Origin of Species when he was 50.

Henry Ford was a failure at his first Model T car, invented when he was 45, because he didn't yet have the productivity efficiencies of the assembly line, which he developed when he was 60.

When Colonel Sanders was 25 he still had yet to be a fireman, a street car conductor, a farmer, a steamboat operator, and finally he ran a service station where he sold chicken. The chicken was great and people love it but he didn't start making real money until he started franchising at the age of 65. That’s the age he was when he found his “purpose” in life. Meanwhile, Harlan Sanders made such a great chicken that even though he had barely made a dime off of it (that would happen 15 years later), at the tender age of 45 the Governor of Kentucky made Sanders an honorary colonel.

Ray Kroc was a milkshake salesman into his 50s. Then he stumbled onto a clean restaurant that served a good hamburger run by two brothers with the last name McDonald. He bought McDonald when he was 52. Henry Miller wrote his first big novel, Tropic of Cancer, at age 40.

We might never reach our peaks.  The journey might be painful or fun and we don't even have to like it. We might never get special treatments if we wrote the great American novel at age 60 or invent a time machine at age 30. We all have to stumble and fall and get up and survive, whether we have purpose or not. We need to eliminate the desperation and the despair that comes with our idea of 'purpose.'  It is ok to be without one. We don't need to pay with lots of unhappiness to buy our future happiness.

So there is still hope for all of us.