I’m a hard worker, and in addition to that, I know I’m smart. But no amount of power or speed will get me to where I’m going if I have no clue where I need to go, and this bugs me.
Because, no matter how much I search, no matter what I strive for, the ‘AHA!’ moment of finding my purpose never arises. No matter how much I strive for it, no matter what I do, I never seem to get the ‘OMG, this is the only thing I want to do for the rest of my life’ type of understanding. In fact, the only time I had that was when I was delusional and addicted and that was in proportion to the pain I was experiencing which was so unbareable and difficult to undo, that finding something to counter balance what I was going through seemed like the only solution I had. It wasn’t. I indulged… Ahh, the decadence of abandoning one’s self to something that knocks our socks off!
But, here’s the issue with that… It’s a downhill road, and no matter how fast we go, we will end up at the bottom, and that means depleated, sick, or dead. And that’s not an outcome anyone wants.
So, what’s the alternative, you ask?
Going upwards. Going upwards is great, except for one thing, when you’re struggling with replacing false beliefs, its rather difficult to go in any direction than the one those canon balls tell you do, down. Because of the weight.
Going upwards is great, its virtuous, its enjoyable, and what’s more, we gain strength and we remove layers of outdated stuff the further we go.
So, how do we find purpose?
This seems to be THE question.
I’ve found that one’s purpose, is at a crossroads between Who we need to serve with our gifts, and the standards we aspire to while using our gifts to serve.
Our purpose, is essentially the dent we want to leave in the world. Or better yet, reparing the dent others have left.
I like to think about purpose as a horizon we go towards but never reach. Like a north star, we go towards it, as a guiding light, but never do we reach it. It’s a form of direction, which keeps us moving, which keeps us growing, which keeps us going in ‘the right direction’.
If our vision is our What, our purpose is our Why.
So, your purpose is essentially the why that is deep within us, which is connected to the star we’re chasing. Like a magnet with only two polarities, we humans have infinite polarities, and our purposes in life stem from that inner why that gets us moving.
So, when we define our gift (what is right here that we can do really really well and fulfills us), and when we know why we have that gift and to who we can give it to make their life better, we discover our lifes purpose. And our lifes purpose can evolve, just as our skills and gifts can be developped over time, we can evolve from serving one type of tribe, to another over time. But, we’re not fixed like tree’s, we can evolve. And of course, when we’ve pursued a sunset for a while, at some point, we realise the solution we’ve found for our problem, we can automate it and then actually change direction towards a new destination.
All the best,
Cherokee Goldberg
Cherokee.blog 