Life goals. It’s a never-ending question with ever-fluctuating answers. In a couple of days, I’ll be 42, a number which represents the Answer for the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything in Douglas Adams’ science fiction “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. In the book, Deep Thought computer requires 7.5 million years to compute this answer. I started to ask myself, “So, in 42 years of life, have you found your life goals”? Religiously, I believe it is to be a servant to the one and only God. But that can’t be the whole story, can it? Faith gives direction, but we still need to walk on the road, choose the turns, and make a life out of it.

In the age where everything about everyone is almost available instantly for everyone to see, I feel we live in a life of comparable. We scroll, we compare, we measure. Even when we’re not trying to. When everyone’s micro moments are just there for everyone’s consumption, feeding a never-ending hunger for more, a fear of missing out. We forget what we’re looking for in the long run, instead of just tomorrow. It’s easy to mistake motion for meaning. For years, I pursued milestones like checkpoints in a game. Title, impact, recognition, growth. And to be honest, I don’t regret it. Those chapters built me. They shaped who I am. But somewhere along the way, the noise got louder than the signal. The “why” got buried under the “how much” and “how fast”.

Then comes a shift. One of my own making. One that I chose. One that peeled away the outer layers of what I thought I should be chasing. In that quiet space that followed, which I rarely got in the many years of high-speed life, things became clearer. Not completely, but clearer. I began to remember the version of myself that was curious without needing to win, good without needing to be seen, and ambitious but not at the cost of peace. I remembered what it felt like to build with people, not just for something. To feel joy in slow progress. To embrace enough.

At 42, maybe the answer is not a destination of a goal, but a way of being.

To be present
To be useful
To be honest to myself
To be less driven by noise and more attuned to meaning

I am reminding myself..
That in the next stretch of the journey, I want to stay grounded in purpose, not performance. To grow with intention, not comparison. To keep asking the right questions — even if the answers take a lifetime to unfold.