Real, Reality, and Real Reality

Knowing how precious your time is, I want to continue in making the point, while also giving you some "food for thought" while all in what I hope to be a brief post. As we continue on our search for "the meaning or purpose of life," it is incredibly important to notice what exactly has occurred. I think as I bring to light what has been happening as you have read you will agree but be a bit surprised. As we have searched for such purpose I have tried to explained my bias and the perspective that I come from. In this, you, my ever so loyal readers, have commented and made suggestions about what you have found on your journey to find the purpose of life. Though there are different journeys and different perspectives, the important thing to first note is that you actually are searching for purpose. What that purpose is, may be in question, but the search in itself is clearly evident. Now in this search you have come to read, hear, observe, study, etc, different people's views on such meaning. You have read my perspective, and seeing that many of you are college students, it is highly likely that you have heard many different ideas that people have for the purpose of your life! Many people think that they know what your life's purpose is to be about, not only their own life's purpose but yours too! How nice of them right? You have spent immense hours, though not all of them, of your life seeking this purpose and now they claim to have found it for you and for them! Though some people that claim this you may not listen to, others, for various reasons, seem more appealing and you at least allow their views to enter into your thoughts, even if they are brief entrances. However, such passages into your thought are the definition of a key word in the theory stated in my first post. I do not always know why or for what reasons, I allow other people's views to take a toll on mine, it could be because I trust them or because they lay out a persuasive argument, it could be because I have grown weary of my search for true meaning and have thus just come to accept whatever is put on the table, or because I have apathy towards the meaning of life and personally just don't care, but the basis behind it is irrelevant to the fact that it is occurring! The fact is that in our struggle to find purpose, we allow others to INFLUENCE our view. Now, one that has influence over us in our purpose of life idea also begins to wield great influence in other aspects of our life. For example, those that have a life devoted to becoming the best athlete they can be, often times look to professionally athletes for advice in their journey to become the best. In this way, they practice with the same drills the pros do. They eat what the pros eat. They wear what the pros wear. It just so happens that many professional athletes wear UnderArmour, and many amateur players look to these pros, thus they too wear UnderArmour. It is in the influence that we veer off the path from what we have come to find as solid and real. It is in this influence that we almost seem to divide ourselves into one that is real, and one that is influenced. Where have you allowed unsubstantial influence to permeate into your life? What in your life have you found to be... real?