I thought life was all roses and not things that would keep it taunted. Somewhere along the line, I accepted that thorns come with the package , I mean the disappointments, the long waiting, the days that ask more of you than you have to give.
But even so, a question keeps coming back to me, usually in the quiet moments: what then is the purpose of living?
Think about it: everything we do is in a circle. We wake up, we say our morning prayers, we get some house chores done, and after that, we eat. Then we go into our daily activities, whether that's work, school, business, or hustle. Night comes, we sleep, and the next morning it all starts again, just on a different timeframe, off by seconds or minutes.
You wake, pray, get some house chores done, eat, work, sleep. It's obviously on repeat.
Sometimes I feel like we're being regulated, like there's an invisible timetable pinned to the wall of our lives and we just have to follow it without ever asking who wrote it or why.
But is routine the enemy?
When I first started thinking like this, routine felt like a cage. It looked like proof that life is just a long loop of the same days dressed in different clothes.
Then I asked myself something I couldn't shake: if the days are the same, why don't I feel the same in all of them?
Some mornings my prayer is just words I've memorized; other mornings the same prayer feels like a conversation, like someone is actually listening. Some days the meal is just food; other days it's laughter around a table with people you love.
The routine is still the same, but the mindset and the why behind the routine aren't the same thing.
So, routine was never the problem. Maybe it's only the container, and what we pour into it is the real question.
The thorns are teaching us something else
We like to talk about the roses: the good days, the wins, the moments that feel like sunshine. But I've started to wonder whether the thorns are where most of the meaning hides.
The thorn of losing something teaches you what it was worth. The thorn of waiting teaches patience you never would have chosen. The thorn of being hurt teaches you how to be gentle with someone else who is hurting.
If life were all roses, would we even notice them? Would anything feel precious if nothing could be lost?
So what is the purpose?
I won't pretend I have the full answer, because scholars, different schools of thought, philosophers, prophets, and ordinary people have wrestled with this question for thousands of years, each defining purpose based on their experience of what they perceive it to be.
But here are a few possibilities I keep turning over.
Purpose isn't found, it is built. Not on one big discovery, but on the small choices we stack day after day, like bricks. And routine isn't the opposite of purpose; it might be the framework for it.
Maybe purpose lives in people, the chores you do keep a home running for someone. The work you do feeds someone. The words you say today could stay with someone for years. We rarely see how far our ordinary actions travel.
Purpose is in the becoming, the person waking up today isn't quite the person who woke up a year ago. Each repeated day shapes us a little, the way a river shapes a stone without either of them noticing.
Or maybe the question itself is the gift.
The fact that we even ask, that we're not satisfied with just existing, says something. A creature that only wanted to survive wouldn't wonder why.
Tomorrow morning
Tomorrow morning you'll probably wake up and do the same things again: the prayers you give, the chores, the food, the day's work.
That's fine. But try this: as you move through it, ask yourself quietly, what am I pouring into this day? Not what the day is giving you — what are you giving the day?
Maybe the purpose of living isn't hidden somewhere far away, waiting for us to find it. Maybe it is sitting right inside the routine we're so tired of, waiting for us to notice it.
And if that's true, the next question is even more interesting: what have we been missing all this time that is right in front of us?
All images are mine
Thank you for stopping by, I appreciate your engagement ❤️