Sunday, January 23, 2011

Purpose

Sometimes, more than others, I reflect on what my life's purpose is. I have never been a mother, so raising wonderful human beings, next President or maybe a Noble Peace Prize winner is not it. I have never had a magnificent career. I am not a Doctor, Nurse, or Teacher. I don't save lives, or educate our future. I am not brilliant or beautiful, and although I call myself an artist, I am no Micheanglo.

I don't know about you, but it makes me dizzy trying to figure out the "reason why I am here."  It seems every book, magazine article and television talk show tells us that we NEED to figure it out.  After all, it would just be too scary to think that we don't have a "REAL" purpose. Or would it?

What if for a moment, we stopped worrying about the "why" and just started  DOING.  Maybe we are here  to create the next great work of art, or to find a cure for (fill in the disease). Or maybe we're not. Maybe we are here save the rain forest, or to invent the next thing that will save make life easier for the disadvantaged. Or maybe not.

 Maybe our  reason is to be a cog it the wheel, that helps turn the person, who WILL create the next great thing or cure cancer.  Or maybe, just maybe, the only reason we are here is to hold a hand of a dying friend, or to deliver a meal to elderly person. Or maybe the only reason was to save that stray dog and save his child from heartbreak.

I don't know about you, but if my "reason" for being on this Earth is only one of the above, then I know my life has been a success.   Are there really any reasons for being here that are any more important than the next?  I don't think so. The World is made up a few people who will achieve great things, a great amount of people who achieve OK things, and then the  people like me, who will find their purpose in doing the little things.  And isn't it the little things in life that really matter?

I will leave you with a quote from one of my favorite people, Eckhart Tolle. It goes like this;

Don't underestimate the power that is in presence. Even if seemingly nothing much is happening yet, there's enormous power that comes through you and flows into this world. Don't even try to understand what it wants; you can only ever get glimpses of what its ultimate purpose is. There's no single human being who knows intellectually what that ultimate purpose of that vast power is that wants to come into this world through you.

Simply said, Just BE...

3 comments:

  1. 'Being yourself' IS my purpose, as long as it is WITH others, like you mentioned. When OTHERS find purpose in our presence, then we are here with purpose, even if we don't understand it!

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  2. The older I get, the more I think about "purpose" and I'm left with unanswered questions. Sometimes just getting through the trials of each day is success in itself. We may never know the affect we have on other people's lives. Thank you for this thoughtful post.

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