What's Your Purpose?

[Quiet_Cool]

Truth be told, I'm still trying to find me way, trying to find that one thing that'll settle me and make me more comfortable with myself. I don't see it near me, and the changes I can make right now are minor and often not what I know to be in my best interest.

What's my purpose? Dunno?

What gete out of bed in the morning? My alarm clock, and I respond with a groan. I work at 3 am.

Q_C

 

[McKenna]

I have been thinking, not about my purpose, but about the purposes of my parents and other deceased relations:

Og, this is a beautiful idea.

My grandma: Always giving of herself, her time, and her money. She taught me more about having fun and being silly than anyone else I know. She taught me the importance of family, how to covet a cozy conversation over a game of cards, and how to laugh so hard my sides ache. She taught me about rootbeer floats and raspberry jam, and what it meant to grow up in the American West in the early 1900s. She was, quite simply the most amazing woman I've ever known.

My Uncle Glenn: He had multiple sclerosis, and though he had his bad days, he also had his good days. Always a smile, always happy to see me. He taught me how to care for those who have lost the ability to care for themselves.

My Uncle D.: Laughter. Good books. Korean war veteran. He taught me how to look for more in people than what meets the eye. He was friends with everyone, and everyone was friends with him. He was possibly the most non-judgmental person I know.

My Brother: He taught me how to reach deep inside myself to find the strength to go farther, faster, with more success than I had ever thought possible.

 

[Nirvanadragones]

I've been thinking about this thread since you started it, McK. I still haven't been able to verbalise what I want to say. So I call on one of my favourite writers. Forgive me for quoting such a long piece. But somewhere between all of those words, and what I feel when I read it, and live it, is my purpose.

The Dance: Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don’t jump up and shout, “Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!”
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiraling down into the ache within the ache,
and I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, every day.

Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
and see who I am in the stories I live.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment,
and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving
those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance,
the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business
without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul’s desires have too high a price,
let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world
the stories and the songs
you want our children’s children to remember.
And I will show you how I struggle not to change the world,
but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging.
Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words,
holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest
intentions has died away on the wind,
dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale
of the breath that is breathing us all into being,
not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don’t say, “Yes!”
Just take my hand and dance with me.

 

[Black Tulip]

Interesting to read all those answers.

Most of my days I'm not very aware of my purpose, other than the need to earn money to pay the bills and enjoy my work and the people around me.

However, I never forget how it feels to have lost my purpose. So I'm careful to enjoy the small things and to remember how easy it is to lose my strength.

What is important to me, my purpose perhaps, is to make the teens I work with feel they are worthwhile. I try to give them a safe and warm place if they want it or point them to alternative paths in life.
I try to let them make the choice and I try to stay non-judgemental.
I'm always eager to learn new things, so gathering knowledge is important to me too. But not knowledge alone, I believe it's important to get wiser when getting older as well.

I seek to leave this earth as a better and wiser, more loving person than when I entered it.

 

[Edward Teach]