The power in your purpose.
What do you want to be when you grow up? I used to get asked this question a lot as a young child, I’m sure we all did. I’ve even asked it of my children in the past.
Now I ask a different question, one that hopefully expands their horizons and give them a glimpse of what is possible on their journey through mortality.
“What do you think your purpose is for being here?”
It’s kind of fun to ask this of children, because the answer sometimes will surprise you, and move you in unimaginable ways. But more importantly, it encourages the child to understand that life can be more than just an experience, more than a roller coaster of good and bad times.
A purpose allows us to look beyond who we are, and all that we suffer, and creates within us a different meaning for all that occurs in our lives. It can change the way we think about time, relationships and ultimately every experience that we have.
Purpose is that powerful, but only if we know what it is.
For a time in my life I lived without a significant sense of purpose. I could serve my wife and family, but that didn’t feel like all I was here to do. These were blessings rather than a sense of purpose.
While I labored every day with a strong sense of why I was here, every negative experience seemed magnified in a tableau of suffering that had no meaning.
And from that I learned a powerful truth. Having a purpose gives both a perspective and a meaning to suffering.
At 45 years old, I began to glimpse what I thought my purpose was, not in some sudden burst of blinding intuition like in a movie, but by taking hesitating steps forward into a world I felt uncomfortable in.
Step by step, moving from the light into the darkness, I felt my way forward, not even knowing where I was going, but with faith in my heart that there was a reason for all that I had been through.
Now at 47 years, I think I may be finding a clearer path.
And the funny thing is, once you find that path, you’ll realize all along what those strange experiences meant. Why was writing a review of a music video in 1986 so memorable?
What was 8 year old me trying to achieve with a typewriter, typing frantically with two fingers writing a book that thankfully never made it past the first page?
Why do I feel so comfortable speaking in front of people, when in my personal life I crave silence, solitude and a space in which to write and think.
As I continue down this pathway now, I invite the universe to meet me along the way, bringing with it the people, the resources, the guidance and the assistance that I need as I align myself more completely with why it is I am here.
In the words from one of my favorite movies, “But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely.”
My purpose is to become the greatest expression of whatever gifts I was given or have picked up along the way.
I am a healer of the body and magnifier of the soul.
And now I would ask of you…. Why are you here?
-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings