[Matt Willard]

Originally Posted by James81

I would wager because telling jokes and making people laugh still isn't a personal, identity-level purpose. It's something you do that springs OUT OF that identity-level purpose.

A good way to get at it is to ask yourself who you are BEING when you make people laugh and tell jokes.

For example, when I came upon the "to explore" part of my purpose, what happened was that I noticed how I used to love to go into the woods and make paths as a kid, how I loved to go for drives as a teenager, and how I loved to explore people's mind as a young adult. And then it dawned on me, that I insanely inspired by exploring things.

So, initially, I came onto my purpose it was one word: Exploration. And on an identity level I WAS an explorer and I was powerfully living my life to that end.

From there it kind of grew as I realized that I like to share my explorations with other people. At that point it become "To explore and to teach." Being an explorer, and then sharing those explorations with other people ("teaching").

As I moved on some more, I discovered that to be a teacher, I had to find my voice. To be willing to SPEAK UP (and I"m still working on that even now). So, I added a new purpose to the mix....and it all came together.

And I highly doubt I'm done discovering my purpose. For now I am, but I'm willing to bet that in the future I will add more components to it as experiences draw me to new awareness's.

Hmmm. Other version of the purpose also tried to account for "being" over "doing", but I haven't looked at it from an entire life viewover to see where I was insanely inspired. Definitely worth another look over.