I recently became an empty nester. Within minutes of my daughter leaving for college, I was assaulted by a reverberating silence. I wondered when did my little girl grow up? Because I am pretty sure I only just blinked once after the gynecologist handed her to me.
In the days that followed, I scrambled to make sense of anything to everything. Is my life over? Am I now waiting for death to arrive? I know… it sounds grave and extreme. But a huge void swallowed my time days on end, shrouding me with deep feeling of loss.
Some introspection said that my plight seemed to be stemming from humanity's obsession with chasing external meaning and the pressure to find the ultimate purpose versus accepting life in its untainted, natural state. As if I am incomplete without discovering my higher calling. And that I would otherwise be miserable.
Like anyone else, I fell into various roles from the start and followed the rules to play a good daughter, student, employee, wife, and a mother. I strongly believed these gave my life purpose.
In modern culture and spiritual traditions alike, people are forced to find purpose and set goals. This pursuit often turns living into an endless psychological chore. It generates subtle feelings of insufficiency, anxiety, and guilt, depending on how well you perform in each role. And how masterfully you fulfill your purpose in life.
My daughter's absence took away one of my roles from me, playing a mother. And it was a significant part of who I identified as. I was committed to raising a great human being. Now that I was done doing that, the burden of becoming something else vs. simply being, bothered me.
Does the human mind use "purpose" as a psychological escape from experiencing the present reality as it is? Because all I needed to do was to feel proud of myself after my daughter left for college. She is an amazing person who is very comfortable with her own company. She never seeks validation from anyone and is forging ahead with a solid plan for her future.
Then, I figured it out. My anxiety was coming from the hardened belief of being significant at every stage of life. You see, Vedas from Indic culture says there are four stages of human life - Brahmacharya (student phase), Grihastha (household stage), Vanaprastha (retirement stage), and Sannyasa (renunciation). As per this, I am at the Vanaprastha stage that encourages detachment, reflection, and moderation. It was often done by moving to Vana, or forest, and prepare for spiritual pursuits.
Sadly, our society rewards ambition and existential striving till death. This inadvertently equates quiet and simple existence with failure. I wonder if animals or nature operates with a concept of "purpose" or they are purely functioning as per their innate coding. Then again, even when freedom in meaninglessness sounds great, following Vedic chronology is impossible because I am a human being who is born into a certain system. Therefore, I must abide by its rules and pay my dues. And not leave for the forest, only to get eaten by an animal, or die prematurely because of my incompetence to survive in the wild.
Nonetheless, I shall strive to live simply and act without being burdened by the weight of finding a new purpose.