What is my purpose in life? what am i on earth for? these questions are asked by many teenagers today. I got home from the gym went into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror for about ten to fifteen minutes and the first thing that popped in my head was, what is my purpose in life? i stand there and just question myself for a quiet long time. See i have had these questions in my head for a long time as soon as i hit thirteen, these questions come running through my mind. It wasn’t until i got in the shower that the real thoughts came in my mind is my purpose to live and praise and teach gods words? is my purpose to join a cluster of barbaric teenagers and run around and do all kinds of juvenile things? i can go on and go on about the list of things i have put in my mind.

This question leads so many teenagers and kids to wrong corners of life and led them too the wrong path. I hate my life! why am i here? i heard this so many times from my own friends and cousins and even people i don’t know, in fact it even came out my own mouth. Are these statements and questions related to the purpose of life? without knowing this question how do we know weather we deserve to live and or just slack off in life. I learned that life isn’t just about that one simple question and instead of turning it into something big why not work towards getting that purpose. Those purposes maybe nonexistent but why waste your time anyways? its how life is and its how god made us. Instead of slacking off you can be in school getting your good grades and doing something with your life.

If you let that question drive you up a mountain and leave you at the merge of a cliff and your ‘bout ready to jump off than you don’t know the true meaning of the question. It is like a stupid question that any more than one person can answer they just don’t know yet, they’re lost. Many young people these days can’t wait to grow up, they can’t wait to get there hands on the driving wheel or even get to go clubbing and dance the whole night away. My main reason why i want to just grow at my regular age pace is because i want to live life and learn about it and after i learn about it i live it. You might be thinking i’m getting off the subject but think about it all the things i’m stating in this piece is all connected to the question. I made a vow to myself that i will not let this question bother me but i will work towards the true real purpose of my life. See just because you don’t know the question that the only person knows is god, you don’t have to bother yourself about it because it’s just the simple answer as, my main purpose in life is to grow and to learn and to make myself a better person.

That’s when you truly learn the answer of the question, which seems to bother many teenagers up to this day. The purpose of life cannot be defined in a manner that most people would agree accordingly. This is why there are not any widely accepted theories or answers to this question, if you don't include religious influences. There are many different purposes of life, depending on what religion you confer with. If you were to take all religious aspects out of this question in particular, the answer would be that we are just animals that live out a lifespan, and die.

I on the other hand do not believe that we were made from a star exploding billions of years ago. Considering it has spent almost three years on best seller lists, the number of people who have not heard of rick warrens the purpose driven life zondervan, 2002 must be very small. As of september 2005, over 23 million english copies and 1.5 million spanish copies of the book have been sold.

1 thousands of churches the world over have experienced 40 days of purpose, a program developed by warren which takes participants through the book from beginning to end. 2 is only a small part of the reason its hardcover sales exceed those of any other book in american history. 3 its no nonsense style, avoidance of overtly religious terminology, clarity, compassion, and its bold declaration to a cynical generation that life really does have a point come together to produce an evangelical tract of unexpectedly broad appeal. Warrens genius lies not in creating new ideas but in his distillation of a complex body of christian doctrine into five simple, though overlapping, propositions. It is easy to mistake the purpose driven life pdl for a self help book. He demands discipline from his audience, as many self help writers do, requiring them to make a forty day commitment and read one chapter a day. And, like most other self help authors, warren makes promises: readers who accept his message will experience less stress in their lives, find a focus for their energies, make decisions more easily, discover the meaning of their existence, and be prepared for an eternity with god when they die 9.

But warren quickly subverts self help expectations by pointing out that we cannot convincingly create the meaning of our lives for ourselves. We know intuitively that our sense of purpose needs validation through an objective authority we need to know that our purpose accords with what our creator had in mind when he made us. Moreover, while most self help books stoke the egoism of their readers, warren immediately decenters his by declaring, its not about you 17. We will best help ourselves when we give up the idea that we can help ourselves and instead yield to gods purposes for our lives. The substance of warrens message will not immediately strike veteran believers as novel: everything exists for the glory of god. We must serve as we are gifted and share with others the good news of what god has done for us. Warrens genius lies not in creating new ideas but in his distillation of a complex body of christian doctrine into five simple, though overlapping, propositions: we exist to please god.

The packaging is new, but as other readers have noted, pdl presents no principles that differ in any significant way from those that most evangelicals already hold. In the distilling process warren subtly reconfigures the old evangelical doctrinal system to produce a theological outline that will nourish a leaner, more aggressively missional, less introverted evangelical self. Doctrines of creation, divine sovereignty, sanctification, judgment and eternal life remain relatively unaffected by his revisioning, even if, for strategic reasons, he does not mention most of them by name. But they take on a slightly different significance by the role they are asked to play in warrens theological vision. The doctrine of gods sovereignty, for example, is used not so much to reduce readers to submission, and then to worship and wonder, butsince god never allows anything to happen that cannot be directed to a spiritual endto encourage them to think how divinely permitted hardships can develop their character.

But warren does not dwell on it as if it were the zenith of christian experience. Accepting christ is merely the beginning of a relationship with god that grows deeper with time, through which we are slowly refashioned into the likeness of christ, that directs our energies toward work of eternal significance, that culminates normally only much later in a direct meeting with god in heaven. This is why warren offers his readers the opportunity to receive christ earlier rather than later in the book: it forestalls a fixation on the experience of dramatic rebirth and allows the post conversion essentials of church participation, spiritual formation, obedience, and mission to be given their proper due. It is significant as a starting point of a god directed life rather than an end in its own right.