Please Tell Me
Yip, you get them everywhere - '5 steps to becoming a multi-billionaire overnight', '3 easy ways to slap yourself into enlightenment', '4 sure-fire methods to ace your toilet paper usage'. Yes, it's laughable, isn't it?
We're drawn to these like moths to a flame because they grab our attention and offer the allure of simple, quick-fix solutions to complex problems.
Yet, more often than not, they are about as useless as the G in 'lasagna'.
The Pursuit
I particularly detest the way serious subjects, such as the one in the heading of this post, are trivialized. I mean, there is just no way in hell for anyone to discover the purpose of their life in three easy steps - that's just bullshit, hence the add-on to this post title "...or not?"
Discovering your life-purpose can take an entire lifetime. Some people go to their graves without ever having known the purpose of their lives.
Others get so obsessed by the pursuit of their life purpose, that they forget to live life to its full potential, and then die without ever having really lived at all.
Still others, reckon they know exactly what their life purpose is and pursue it with the enthusiasm of a male masseuse at a Miss World pageant and even purport to tell others what their life purpose is. Some others - bless their souls, reckon that it is part of their mission in life to ram their life-purpose down your throat, and other bodily cavities...
Now let me whisper something in thine ear, oh seeker of the purpose of thine life...
IT DOESN'T BLOODY MATTER!!
Yes, you heard me right - it does not bloody matter, what your life purpose is or whether you get to know what it is during your lifetime or not. The fact is, there is no way in hell for anyone to ever know with absolute certainty what their purpose in life is, unless they are able to book a personal session with GOD Himself and hear the words uttered from His mouth:
"Your purpose in life, dear Bob Appleknutz, is - X, Y or Z."
The Truth
Now before you recoil in complete agony and distress, covering your head with dust and ashes after hearing this shocking piece of truth, allow me to put things into perspective for you...
Ask yourself this:
What difference would it make in your life if you were to know exactly what your purpose in life is?
Will it make you happier?
Will it give you more confidence?
Will it make your life on earth more impactful?
Maybe it would, who knows, but there is also the odd chance that it may cause more anxiety in your life. It might in fact cause an inferiority complex in you and lead to great unhappiness if you were indeed to know.
How so? Allow me to elaborate...
wE ARE ALL BORN WITH A SPECIFIC PURPOSE TO FULFIL
We are all indeed born with a specific purpose to fulfil during our earthly lives. Where you are born, who your parents are, what circumstances you live under, the things happening to you in your life, are all clues as to what your purpose might be because you are born under the absolute perfect circumstances for YOU to fulfil YOUR specific purpose on earth.
OBJECTION YOUR HONOR!!
And now I can already hear the choir of objections rising from those who were born into crappy circumstances and less than perfect environments:
"How can that be? "
"How can living in this shithole of a country be perfect for me?"
"How can these abusive parents be perfect for me? It makes no sense!"
Well, I'm here today to be somewhat in your face and say, the hell it does make sense!
There's Reason Behind The Madness
You were born into the circumstances you are in with a specific purpose in mind. More than that, you were born into your specific circumstances to grow and overcome, but that is a topic for later discussion.
In human perception, not all purposes are equal, and by that I certainly don't imply that one person's purpose is loftier or more important than another's. I'm simply saying that your purpose in life might very well not live up to the notion or expectation you might have of it in your mind.
What do I mean? Well, a person's life purpose might simply be to be a father or a mother to a child who has to learn certain lessons from YOU specifically in order to fulfil his/her purpose in life, which might be to become the president of a country someday or a medical doctor, or a teacher, or a librarian. You get the idea...
Your purpose might be as menial as to be a janitor, or to sweep floors, or to be a dish washer, and knowing this, you might become disheartened and angry, so it's best not to know sometimes.
What's The Purpose?
And now you will ask, well what kind of a lousy purpose is that to be a janitor or a floor sweeper or a dish washer and I will answer, that...
In the eyes of God all purposes are equal.
And this brings me to what I really want to communicate to you today.
What Truly Matters
It doesn't matter what your purpose in life is, what truly matters is the spirit in which you live your life!
You can be a janitor or a sweeper of streets or a washer of dishes and that can be your purpose in life, because through the way in which you perform these menial tasks, you might one day be noted by someone who needs a trigger in THEIR life to catapult THEM into the fulfillment of THEIR purpose.
Such a person might be suffering from depression and always tend to see the negative around them, only to one day observe the happy street sweeper, the smiling janitor who always greets everyone, the dish washer who never seems to complain, and that might just serve as a wake-up call, a trigger for Mr/Ms Depression to say, 'Wow, look at that dude, he is always happy, she never complains, they are always smiling and they have such shitty jobs. Here I am and look at everything I have, yet I'm still unhappy, I had better get a grip on my life.'
And so Mr/Ms Depression goes on to become a world-renowned motivational speaker, or a caregiver or a teacher of people, thereby fulfilling his/her purpose in life, turning your seemingly inglorious purpose into something truly great, because...
...none of this would be possible if it had not been for you and the spirit in which you live your life.
Can you see how this all works?
Can you appreciate how everything is linked to everything else, how one thing seems to build on another?
This is the magic of our lives, the incomprehensible magnitude and complexity of earthly existence which leaves you breathless once you begin to understand...
So what am I actually saying about this whole life-purpose thing?
I'm saying that it does not matter whether or not you know what your life purpose is. It serves no purpose to worry about it, or spend countless hours trying to figure it out, because you will never know for sure.
But don't get disheartened, for there is a way in which you can assure that you are or will be fulfilling your purpose and that is, as I've mentioned earlier, by the way in which you live your life, the spirit in which you perform this grand dance of human existence.
It's All About Perspective
Living life from a fear-based perspective, worrying, being anxious, always seeing the cup as half empty instead of half full is a sure way not to live out your life purpose.
Living from a love-based perspective, irrespective of your circumstances, seeing God in every person we meet, being joyful and thankful for what we have, even if it is very little, is a sure guarantee that you are fulfilling your life purpose, even if you don't have a clue what it is.
"Oh but it is such a tough call" you say and I will say, 'yes, I agree with you, it is'.
It is tough to be loving, to be grateful, to be smiling if you are hungry, if you are living in fear, if you are cleaning toilets every day of your life...
But herein lies the challenge, the reason why you were born, the very essence of being alive...
These are the tools you were given to reach, fulfil and live out the purpose of your wonderful life. Nobody said it is going to be easy and you knew this even before you were even born...
Blessings In Disguise
So take comfort in your trials and tribulations, be grateful for them because if it were not for them, you would not be able to grow, to fulfil your glorious purpose in life.
See how often people would say, "My misfortune was actually a blessing in disguise".
"Had it not been for this motor accident, this insolvency, this hardship, I would never have gotten to where I am today, my life would never have taken the positive direction it did, I would never have become so successful in business."
And these are only the things we can see with our eyes, the things we are aware of...
We will NEVER know the unseen miracles that occur because of the fact that WE ARE.
We will never know the inspiration a complete stranger received from us through something we said or the impact our smile had on someone at just the right time, just the right place...
Guard your thoughts, guard your words, guard your actions, for in these three things lie the key to a purpose-filled, blessed life.
Share your thoughts below. I would love to hear them....
Make Your Life Magnificent!
