Well I would say the purpose of life is to be happy and to avoid suffering. Yet I don't envision the happy life as one filled with friends, wealth, pleasure, romantic love, or having the human race behave in a certain way. I feel that these short term pleasures are fleeting, and attempting to find lasting fulfillment through them will create distress. Hence in my opinion one can only find lasting happiness through the practice of loving-kindness directed outward towards all living things and detaching one's self from the objects of the materialistic world.