Purpose - Finding out your why

“He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.” — Nietzsche

This is the quote i take from the book 'Man’s search for meaning by Viktor Frankl'.I believe this is the core thought of the book. If you have a reason to live you can overcome any obstacles and survive the tremendous amount of pain. If you don’t have anything to live for you may have piles of money, plenty friends, and relatives, but nothing that makes you feel fulfilled. This clearly highlight the importance of purpose in life.

Purpose is main driving force that enable us to realize our full potential. There are many example in history where people with a clear sense of purpose have moved mountains. 

• Its clear purpose that made Abraham Lincoln abolish slavery and still keep the country united during turbulent time of civil war.
• Raja Ram Mohan Roy was driven by the purpose of improving the situation of women in society, this regorous efforts led to abolition of Sati practice in India.
• The purpose of attaining freedom from British rule was the force that was manifested in nationalist movement, this led to the independence. 

Its the power of purpose that results in ordinary people producing extraordinary results. 
"Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine."
Its the clear purpose of providing affordable health care to the needy that led to creation of Narayana hrudayalaya by Dr. Devi Shetty. 

Having understood the power of purpose the question arises how do we find purpose in our life. There comes the concept of 'ikigai" its Japanese word with meaning of a reason to jump out of bed each morning.

The Japanese island of Okinawa, where ikigai has its origins, is said to be home to the largest population of centenarians in the world.

ikigai is seen as the convergence of four primary elements:

• What you love (your passion)
• What the world needs (your mission)
• What you are good at (your vocation)
• What you can get paid for (your profession)

Discovering your own ikigai is said to bring fulfilment, happiness and make you live longer.
Many times we struggle to answer these questions and find our ikigai. Even after finding our ikigai we find ourself into the situations where we could not pursue what we are passionate about due to constraints/ responsibility and financial situations. 

Here the question arises how you manage to be happy in a situation where there is a disconnect between your professional job and ikigai. There are many who think about leaving their job and follow their ikigai but could not do this due to multiple constraints. This situation makes you feel frustrated and led to dissatisfaction. 

A simpler way to handle this problem is to start doing what you love (ikigai) by devoting small amount of time on the activity along with your job and build sufficient financial strength by your job/ systematic investing so that after a point in time you can take a plunge to just do what you love doing it.