Having Purpose in Life
(The Knightly Path)

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
--George Bernard Shaw

In order to be happy in life, one needs to feel that life has a purpose—not just life in general, but our specific lives. We read about famous people from the past and their accomplishments, or see pictures of celebrities with expensive clothes and smiling faces, or admire successful businesspersons whose wealth brings them everything their hearts desire, and we wish that we could be like them, as if great accomplishment, fame and material success will just fall out of the sky given time. Or worse, we resent that it doesn’t.

Unfortunately, fame and material success do not bring happiness, not if the word happiness means something other than posing with fake smiles and displaying our latest toys as if they mean something about us.  Great accomplishments hold better odds, but it depends on the value of those accomplishments, what they bring, and how we accomplished them.

Happiness comes from having a worthy purpose in life. Why? Because purpose gives us value, and without value we feel empty. When our sense of value is so low that all we do is complain or add to the stress of others, we know that our lives have failed, and a sense of self-loathing follows.

Along comes Chivalry-Now with its 12 Trusts, saying that a simple code of ethics can make our everyday lives heroic.

How? Not by the chance accident of single brave act caught in camera, but by reflecting the qualities of the heroic character in everything we do. By working for justice. By helping those in need. By advocating for truth instead of fashionable lies. By being courteous in a world that desperately needs it. By gently healing the social wounds that confront us all the time, created by greed and envy and selfishness. And by approaching life with a spirit of humility and resolve at the same time.

Do you really want purpose in life? The heroic path is simple. Make the world a better place in everything you do and say, and help those who are in need.

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