Purpose, Value and Meaning

I recently heard these words as "good" reasons to keep working although retirement age had come and gone. Purpose, value and meaning. These words were pronounced with such solemnity that i knew they were my friend's heart mantra. She probably repeated them to herself several times a day and certainly whenever the voice arose that said after 75 years you can relax. No way.

Actually that was not the first time i have heard those words. It seems like they are often quoted in studies that show working is good for you, in newspaper or magazine articles about aging and even as a rah, rah to youngsters encouraging them to "get on track." Does anybody see how terrifying this brainwashing is? The point is not to say that working is bad and everyone should just quit. It is a little more subtle than that. It is seeing once again how collective egos conspire together to get you to look outward for satisfaction, happiness and love or rather purpose, meaning and value. If you look to your job for validation, do you see you are trapped right out of the gate? If anything goes wrong with your job, whammo there goes your value. If you quit your job or are fired, whammo there goes your purpose and if you aren't working well obvy, there is no meaning. And now we start to get to the heart of things--no purpose, value or meaning.

If you begin to look at your ego, really look at it you won't find it anywhere. Why? Because in reality it doesn't exist. Let's back up and give a very broad definition of ego--basically that repository of everything you think, in particular anything involving duality, right/wrong, good/bad, worthwhile/worthless etc. Another way of saying that is anything that you believe is true or false or anything you think you "should or shouldn't do" or "should or shouldn't be." Now have you found any physical evidence of your ego? Of course the great manifestors that we are, we literally make something out of nothing. We can take a thought and y viola create physical proof of its' existence. Eg. The thought--I can't do math. You take a math test. You fail. You look at the big fat F in red at the top of your test--proof. But this is the effect of the ego not the actual ego. Keep looking for its lair. You won't find it because ego doesn't exist.

Ego's biggest fear is that you will discover that it doesn't exist in reality. It exists solely in the virtual reality of the mind. The only way it keeps the human enslaved is by convincing the human that it must continue to look outward for answers to whatever nagging questions or thoughts arise regarding the futility of the virtual life. If, or hopefully when, you stop, sit down and look inside really look inside. Look in every nook and cranny, every dark, dusty corner you will realize that ego does not exist and you will find your freedom. In the meantime without throwing a mental nuclear bomb into your life you can become aware of how many times the collective egos rally together to keep the humans looking outside themselves for purpose, value and meaning.