The Purpose of My Life

 

Why was I born? What is the Purpose of My Life? Do I have a Purpose? Or do I have to discover the Purpose of My Life. Or will the Purpose of my Life be handed down to me on a platter. Have these questions ever troubled you? Am I the only one in the world asking these questions? Surely not. But ever since I was in my teens, I have been troubled by this question. I was at that time a voracious reader. The meaning of life and my Purpose in Life were big questions for me. I was restless, I felt like a rudderless ship.

When I was in my early twenties or so, this poster caught my attention and stopped me in my tracks. True I was on my way, but what truly was the purpose of my life. I was one of a herd of sheep. I asked and asked, but only got blank stares. I soon realized that there were some questions you just don’t ask. You follow the herd. Even if it is a herd that has chosen a “road less traveled”. What I mean is, whatever the journey, the semblance of a destination fast disappears or worse was never even considered. We get busy sustaining life, fulfilling personal needs, and defending personal boundaries that may be real or imaginary. Just take a look around you. From the so-called “advanced” nations to what are called “third world” countries, where is it that you find purposefulness, peace, harmony, equality or the sharing of goods. Which part of the world shows a high health rate? We all seem to have one destination today – The Hospital.

Sorry for being so depressive. But if I don’t look at the dirt in my room, it's unlikely that I will ever clean it.

Let me cut a long story and get to the point. It took me another forty years before some light began to emerge and I began to see a Purpose in my Life.

A quote From a Collection of Meditations by David Viscott caught my attention:

 

 

This quote certainly gave me a boost and a very real sense of Purpose. However, it did not take me long to understand that this was not the whole truth. To me, life had begun to mean much more than just using my gift. I had begun to realise, that what I took for purpose and meaning was in reality ambition or downright self-centeredness, covered with a veneer of altruism. Sure I was doing a lot of good and once again I was feeling restless.

 Well over the last 25 years or so this is what I have discovered about my life, about the Purpose of My Life:

• The Purpose of My Life is to know who I am. I learned all about my life by reflecting on my life at various stages, by listening to feedback from friends and enemies. By accepting my Bright side and my Shadow side. I am still a work in progress.

• The Purpose of my Life is to know Others. Eureka! As I began to discover and accept myself, I found it so much easier to accept and understand others, yes with their Bright side and their Shadow side.

• The Purpose of my Life is to Know and experience the Divine. As I began to discover the Divine in me, I discovered the Divine in Others. I soon realized we are all one in the Divine.

When we accept one another and are united we establish a world of Peace, Happiness and Perfect Health. When we reject one another, we are fragmented and create a world of Chaos, War, Disease, and Sickness.

 The Purpose of Life is to Incarnate the Divine on Earth. To Heal the Earth, to establish a New Creation. Yes, it is in our hands. It has begun!

 

Self-Discovery

The Journey of Self-Discovery! 

My Decision to Find Myself!

                                                                                   By Eleni Makedonas

Eleni's sharing has inspired me and so I share it with you. (malcolm rodrigues s.j.)

I can say with confidence that the moment a person truly starts down the path of self-discovery, they will never turn back. Many may ask the question, “What is self-discovery?” or “What do you mean you don’t know who you are?”

The American English Dictionary defines self-discovery as follows:

“a becoming aware of one’s true potential, character, motives, etc.”

Ignorance towards my true self is something I lived with for a long time. Self-discovery means many things. It means finding your purpose in life (we all have a purpose), it means digging deep into your childhood and revealing the experiences that shaped you... good and bad. It means realizing what your beliefs are and living by them. The effects of self-discovery include happiness, fulfillment, clarity and maybe even enlightenment! The journey however is not always an easy road. The journey includes fear, confusion, misunderstanding, doubt and literally re-visiting all your choices in life. I like to refer to it as spring-cleaning of the mind, your emotions and your surroundings (including the people in your life). It requires making some tough decisions and sticking to them. My journey so far has seen me cut people out of my life. I call them the “takers.” They were takers because I allowed them to be and it wasn’t until I realized that many of these relationships were one-sided — self-discovery — that I decided to cut them out. It has also seen me completely change the course of my life and start to follow my true passion and purpose (this blog). I have also started to set intentions and no longer have expectations from others — okay... this one is really hard for me and it’s a work in progress — but instead I have started to look within for answers. I’ve had several set backs along the way and I have no doubt I will have many more but, I’m not giving up.

What I know for sure is that the journey is worth taking. I am slowly becoming calmer, more aware and more tolerant. I am learning how to pay attention to my feelings and understand myself better.

What I know for sure is that I have been very hard on myself for most of my life. I have not been truthful with myself and have had unrealistic expectations therefore, setting myself up for disappointment. Why do we do this? Why do we lie to ourselves? And more importantly, why do we allow ourselves to get away with it? When someone else lies to me and I find out about it I freak out. “How dare he lie to me? Does she think I’m stupid?” but, we lie to ourselves profusely and even cover up our own lies by accepting them as truth in order to reassure ourselves that it’s okay??!?!?!

For example: I have body image issues. I have always had body image issues yet covered it up by lying to myself. When I was 14 I even tried to starve myself thin. I would convince myself that I was happy with the way I looked when deep down I knew I wasn’t. I worked so hard to cover up how I really felt by masking my true feelings. “I’m happy with my hips” I would tell myself and “I like my perky butt,” even though deep down I hated the way I looked. I’m not implying that what I was feeling was a good thing but, it was what I was feeling and ignoring it, or pretending it didn’t exist was doing no good to me — or my body image issues. Eventually, it became exhausting. Recently, I started working on accepting the fact that I have body image issues and acknowledging my feelings towards them. I am not suppressing the feelings I have anymore instead, I am admitting to them therefore diminishing the threat they once held upon me and reducing the hold they had on my life. There comes a freedom with accepting your feelings and emotions. It’s like a release of some sort. Like you’ve identified the elephant in the room and waved at him so you no longer have to pretend he’s not there. Once you acknowledge the elephant in the room he doesn’t bother you anymore. You learn to co-exist and be okay with his presence and not allow him to control how you act and feel anymore.

What I know for sure is that being true to my feelings and acknowledging them as well as validating them has released so much fear in me. It has released my fear of not being good enough as well as my fear of not living up to the expectations I set for myself. What I know for sure is that we are usually our own worst enemy. We hold ourselves back in so many ways and I am ready to move away from that pattern. I’m not suggesting that these fears no longer exist within me because they certainly do and, I don’t think they will ever go away but now that I am aware of my true feelings and now that I am becoming conscious of my real beliefs, they no longer have a strangle hold on my life. Instead, I have a hold on how they can or cannot affect me.

My message is this... Stop being your own worst enemy! Stop lying to yourself about your emotions and feelings and start accepting them and allowing yourself to feel whatever is it you feel. The freedom you will feel within yourself is reward enough however, the universe will give you back the love that you have finally and justifiably started to give yourself. This I promise you!

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”
— Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man