This is a topic which seems to have come up quite a lot over the last few days. For me, anyway. Maybe it’s a side-effect of that whole Age of Aquarius thing – you know, where we all enter this great age of enlightenment, etc?
Purpose is a tricky bugger, no lie. I know this because there’s a massive media industry around it, with people selling books and CDs and videos and seminars on finding your purpose. Of course, they’re getting it all wrong, because if they got it right (and everyone got the answer they needed), the industry would collapse within the same year.
This guy has a good approach to figuring it out:
That clip inspired an image which I think fits the concept incredibly well. It’s fairly large (1280×960), just click to get the full version:
The trick, really, is finding your path. Or rather, from your perspective, it’ll be finding the next small stretch of ground to walk on. Like that picture above, the full extent of your path is never clear – you’re just following the markers – significant events that resonate with you, letting you know that you are, in fact, on the right path.
Trouble is, there are so many different paths out there. How do you know you’ve found the right one?
Personally, I’ve found that the right path represents life, liberty, transformation, hope and light – it never represents fear, pain or darkness. Therefore, in order to find your path, you must first align yourself with the values you wish to live by. This can go either direction – there are people who explicitly choose pain, and end up walking a path defined by it (for instance).
With your internal values set, it becomes that much easier to judge your current situation, and determine whether or not it represents a part of your path. If it does, well done you – now you’re faced with possibly the most difficult challenge in existence. Overcoming fear.
A particularly derailing fear is the fear of not being on the right path – a feeling which is especially true if you haven’t found any markers to indicate that you’re heading in the right direction. Then there are plenty of other fears – of security, provision, all of them telling you to make the “logical” choice – go with the highest offer, the largest business concern, etc.
Unfortunately, the logical choice isn’t always the right one. As much as everyone would like to believe the “mind over matter” mantra, there are times when matter – or more specifically, emotions – need to take precedence over the mind, and logic. Whether by evolution or design, humans are creatures blessed with the logic/emotion conflict, and need to live balanced lives representative of that. Going towards either extreme will inevitably have a disastrous outcome.
So once you’ve set your values, and you’ve found a piece of your path, the only thing left to do is press on.
In my personal experience, I’ve found that your path (and the personal growth that comes from walking it) might not make sense in the moment, but looking back, the design will be clear.
