They are questions as old as humankind: Who am I, and why am I here?
I receive lots of questions like this from people seeking a better life. There is something inside them, something deep and profound that won’t allow them rest or salvation until they discover what it urges them to find.
That’s when they find me.
Many come armed with arsenals of objectives, aims and pursuits, most of which can be resolved and accomplished by just one thing: Having a clear life purpose.
They come in search, so I cut right to the chase. “Let’s start with this…” I say, “…what are you really seeking?”
Most mull for some time before arriving at a conclusion, or lack of. The surprising fact is, most people don’t even know what they really want.
But they almost always know what they don’t want, and they tend to focus on that without ever realizing it. All we have to do is look at their lives for the proof. Whatever it is, it repeatedly shows up as the fears, doubts and challenges that continue to rock their world.
Whether they know it or not, this hard-knock way of life actually serves them. It will not let them off the hook until they identify and pursue their most important mission.
In other words, their life purpose.
If you’re unsure about what you want, I’ll make it simple. What you want is to feel good. That’s it. To feel good is the intended endpoint of your desires, your dreams and your aspirations. Achieve your desires, accomplish your goals, acquire your aspirations and you’ll feel good about yourself.
Put simply, feeling good about yourself means being happy, healthy, useful and prosperous. Most else you can want in life stems from there. No matter who you are or what your goals, to be happy, healthy and abundant is your intention because, in a sense, it is your life purpose.
Ask ten different people what “life purpose” means to them and you’re likely to get ten different answers. Others will openly admit they don’t know about a life purpose or what that really means. Most just never think that much about it.
And yet, without purpose, we are all like rudderless ships on an angry sea, blown down and tossed around by life without rhyme or reason. Sometimes we happen into smooth sailing; then it’s back to uncertainty, struggle, stress, and the menace of navigating in the troubled waters circling the drain.
Is this really what we live for, to be pushed and pulled around by the nose, bullied by life for no good reason? Most haven’t a clue, but you don’t have to be one of them.
Everyone you know who lives with purpose, on purpose, transcends the ordinary life. There’s just no comparison; people with purpose have what the rest will never have, or even imagine. It’s as black and white as ebony and ivory, slave and master, sleepwalking and waking up.
Here’s the thing: Every single one of us comes into this world with a purpose to fulfill. Some realize it; most don’t. Many will go to their graves without ever knowing, and on their deathbed wonder why they did what they did, and didn’t do what they didn’t.
For them it will remain a big mystery called the “unexamined life.”
Are you the owner of an unexamined life? If so, your time has come. You simply cannot continue living a charade; on some deeper level you feel what the Greek philosopher Socrates is reputed to have said: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
If you didn’t know that before, you do now.
You have a real need to share your greatest gift with the world and receive the all the benefits of living an inspired life. And still you struggle, seeking and searching for exactly how to make a difference and live as you were meant to.
There must be more than this…
Indeed my friend, there is.
[message type=”success”]
Read part 2 of “Why We Need Purpose”
[/message]