I want to take a step back and spend a little time talking about the perceived purpose of our lives. Perceived is the key word…for I have come to believe that for me and many people I know, we have no clue on the true purpose of our lives.
FOR YEARS...I BOUGHT INTO WHAT THE WORLD SAID
There is a part of me that hates to say this…but for decades I bought into the what the world said our purpose is. I believed that each of us are to:
Get a good education
Marry the right person
Build a career
Build a family
And from that perspective we almost always become:
Our accomplishments.
Our financial success.
Our relationship.
Our appearance.
Our reputation.
NOT ON SOLID GROUND
And while these things did feel like a solid grounding for my purpose in life and a foundation for who I am as a person is … there was and is one BIG problem. NONE of the things listed above are permanent. Any of them could change without warning. And I know this from personal experience.
A false accusation by a powerful wealthy business associate – blasted all over local media by his cronies who owned the radio and tv stations – and I experienced
A reputation torn to bits
Supposed friends having to choose sides and choosing to go where the money and power lay
Ultimate loss of a career
BUT DID THE SAME THING
But even after experiencing what should have been an eye-opening experience, I still went back and fought to re-establish myself according to the world’s standards because that was my purpose … right? Little did I know that all I was doing was just setting myself up for disappointment and ultimately for that time when I recognized the emptiness that all of this brought me.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein
You may have had similar experiences where the rug was pulled out from under you. I am willing to bet that if that happened you did what every red-blooded American is told to do…pull yourself up by your bootstraps and move forward. (But the moving forward was in and with the same framework.)
Can you relate to any of this? Have you had any experiences that were similar? Maybe the story line was different, but your choices on how to react were similar?
BUT DO YOU/DID YOU DEFINE YOUR PURPOSE THE SAME WAY
Or you may have been blessed and never experienced an event like the one I described above. But have you defined your purpose in similar ways? Your purpose in life is to … be the man or woman who achieved success … the man or woman who got the good education, married right, built a successful career, etc.
Regardless of whether you have experienced the very thin thread by which we hold onto all the things of this world being shattered or not … it is critical that you take the time to answer the underlying question set out throughout this blog.
To quote Rick Warren: “Without God life has not purpose. Without purpose life has not meaning. Without meaning, life has not significance or hope.”
How do you think most people define their purpose in life?
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