I guess at some point of our life if not all, many of us ask this question to ourselves: what’s the purpose of my life? Recently I have been asking this question to myself. I get positive and negative answers. Some days it seems like my purpose of life is to work and keep paying bills and some days it seems like, why was I the very first person to move to the USA. Maybe the purpose of my life is to be a mother to my girls and support my family so they can all have a better life. I get lots of positive and negative answers. I guess I am asking how would you know what’s the purpose of your life? I still haven’t found the right answer or discovered if there is a right answer.
I am always been a thinker and my thinking helps me to think outside of the box, helps me to understand others, situations and many times understand my own self. Recently I had a dinner with my psychologist friend and we had a really nice chat. I asked him, “Do you know the purpose of your life?” He looked at me and said, “That’s a million dollar question, and yes, I do. We all have to find our own answer. And it’s different for everyone”.
When we were kids, we wanted to grow up as soon as possible and envied adults and thought their lives seemed very easy. They don’t have to ask anything to anyone. They can do anything they want to do. But once we grew up, we realized being an adult is not as fun as we thought. Being an adult comes with lots of responsibilities. And in reality we can’t go back to being a child.
My life has been divided into three parts. First part from birth to eighteen years in Karachi and second from 18 years to 30 until I was married. And then at the age of 30 as a divorced and a single parent until now in the States. The first 18 years of my life was without choice. I was trying to make it each day all while being hopeful for the future. I was focused and wanted to have a safe and secure future. I didn’t want to move to the States but I didn’t have a choice. So I had to let go of my 18 years of life and start a brand new life around new people, language, culture and with lots of unknowns and no securities. I thought since I was married and had kids that that was my security and identity. But I was wrong. Then unexpectedly I got divorced and found myself as a single mother without any security.
When I was living in Karachi, even though I was pretty young, I cared about my family and wanted to strongly support my sisters and my mother. After I moved to the States I felt completely lost and didn’t know where to start. So I followed my ex-husband. I didn’t have my own identity except as a wife and a mother. Once when I found myself divorced first I went into complete denial and shock. But for my girls I put myself together and put on the mother hat and started finding my own identity.
Now when I look back I ask this question to myself, what was the purpose of my life then and even now? Is the purpose of my life to be a caretaker? When I think about it I don’t get a satisfactory answer, because I am more than a wife, daughter, sister and even a mother. I look at it as those were and are a part of my identity, of who I am but those relationships don’t define me as who I am.
I am a woman who cares about others deeply. I am honest, trustworthy, beautiful, educated, loyal, a giver, understanding, respectful, mother, sister, daughter and a friend. I am a dreamer and full of hope. I trust God and believe God loves all of us equally. I have lots of dreams and I am proud of myself how far I have come under hard circumstances. But I am still searching for an answer, what’s the purpose of my life? Do you know what’s the purpose of yours?
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