Teleology

My philosophy is fairly simple. I believe that everyone has a purpose, and everyone’s purpose is different. My philosophy is closely related to Teleology. Teleology is a reason or explanation for something in function of its end, purpose or goal. Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the precise term originated in the eighteenth century. But if teleology means the use of ends or goals in natural science, then Aristotle was rather a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among Aristotle’s predecessors, but he rejected their conception of extrinsic causes such as intelligence or god as the primary cause for natural things. Instead, he considers nature itself as an internal principle of change and as an end, and his teleological explanations focus on what is intrinsically good for natural substances themselves. Aristotle’s philosophy was later conflated with the teleological proof for the existence of god, the anthropic cosmological principle, creationism, intelligent design, vitalism, animism, anthropocentrism, and opposition to materialism, evolution, and mechanism.

The purpose for you being on this planet is completely your choice. Your dreams determine your purpose on this planet. The overall purpose of life is to be happy, to find what it is that makes you happy. We all walk a path of life, a path containing many twists and turns, a path that is different to every individual. While these paths may be dark, gloomy, completely rigid at times we must find our reason. Our “why”. Our “why” is determined by what we feel most comfortable doing in the life that we live. Our “why” is simply our purpose. In life, we all have certain dreams or goals. Every decision we make in life is to lead us toward our goals. There is never a straight trail to what we want. There are obstacles, or “brick walls.” The brick walls are there for a reason. They are not there to shut us down or keep us from getting what we want. They are there to make us work for what it is that we want.

As humans we must get through the brick walls, no matter what they may be, and achieve our goals to fulfill our purpose in life. I believe that anything tough we go through will be well worth the battle in the end. As humans on this Earth we naturally have the drive in us to do what we want to do. I believe people do what they want to do and will not do what they do not want to do. As we go through the life trying to find our purpose I believe we do a lot of “soul searching”, this is defined as having deep and anxious consideration of one’s emotions and motives or of the correctness of a course of action. Basically the examination of one's conscience especially with regard to motives and values. This is entirely different for each and every person.


I believe that we all will fall at one point or another. If we can get back up and learn from it, we will be able to grow as individuals. We must keep trying to find our purpose, even if we have no idea what we should do. “It is better to fail spectacularly than to go along un-noticed.” –Dr. Randy Pausch. Sometimes when you walk off the field, the scoreboard doesn’t show what you want it to. But if you can say that you tried as hard as you can, it was a positive experience. I believe all of this simply because I have found this to be true in reaching my personal goals so far in life. Everything just seems to work out better when I follow this philosophy. So basically, follow your dreams, give it your all, leave it all out there, and embrace every single moment of it, because it will be over way too soon. When our time is over, we want to be able to look back and say we had a good time, that we did what we could to leave our mark on the world. That we accomplished “our purpose.” We want to be able to look back and have no regrets. To do this we must grasp every experience we have because it is part of who we are. We also must learn from experiences that don’t turn out in our favor. I believe we must learn to appreciate this life that we were given. We must love it, we must learn to love life.

Interesting reads:
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/teleology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdEmoo2sUrQ

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/aristotle/themes.html

I’ve commented on:
https://cophilosophy.blogspot.com/2017/12/defining-courage-2nd-installment-6.html?showComment=1512618353431#c3636959060662964428

https://cophilosophy.blogspot.com/2017/12/digital-witness-engaged-v-plugged-in.html?showComment=1512618747456#c3292361173894980119