Insights on the Family: The Purpose of Life--The Plan of Happiness

"Why am I here?" "What is my purpose?" "Where do I go when I die?"

These are all questions we ask ourselves at some point in our lives, and this leads us to find a reason for living. There needs to be a purpose or a drive that gets us to choose a direction and go.

Randall L. Ridd shared an example of how having a purpose gives us motivation in a worldwide devotional to youth. He said:

"Imagine for a moment you are in a lifeboat on the ocean, with nothing but rolling waves in every direction, as far as the eye can see. The boat is equipped with oars, but which direction would you row? Now imagine you’ve caught a glimpse of land. Now you know the direction you must go. Does seeing land give you both motivation and purpose? People who don’t maintain a clear sense of purpose are drifters. Drifters allow the tides of the world to decide where they are going" (Living with Purpose: The Importance of "Real Intent").

In this analogy, just being able to see a destination gives the rower motivation and energy to go forward. With no destination in sight or in mind, there is no reason to push to go somewhere. That is the power of knowing where you are going.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I believe there is a purpose, or a plan for why we are here and a goal of where we want to be. We call this the Plan of Salvation or the Plan of Happiness. Why is it referred to the plan of happiness when we have so many trials in life? We know that if we stick to the plan, we can obtain life with God (which sounds like a happy place to me).

Here is a video that take you through what the plan is:

Understanding who we are and what we can become gives us the motivation to make the best of our life. In The Family: A Proclamation to the World, we learn that God sent us to earth to live in families. It is only through cultivating strong marriages and families that we can be the happiest in this life.

Click here to see the document

Daniel K Judd concluded in his article, The Eternal Family: A Plain and Precious Part of the Plan of Salvation:

 "God and His plan are eternal. He instituted marriage and family in the beginning. God created the earth, the garden, and our first parents in order to create families for all of His children to be born into and experience mortal life--especially mortal family life. The Fall occurred because Adam and Eve chose to obey God's commandment to multiply and  replenish the earth and thus create the first family. The Savior completed the Atonement in order to reconcile God's children with the Father and with one another. Thus, The great plan of happiness is God's plan for happiness in time and in eternity."

To learn more about this plan, you can read about it here:

Plan of Salvation