Finding my purpose ...

[Rapid]

Hi, everyone. I did Steve's "How to discover your life purpose in about 20 minutes" exercise tonight. Has anyone else done the exercise? If so, have you found your purpose? Did you become emotional (as Steve said that you would) when you came upon it?

I tried the exercise three times - the third time tonight. This time I did come upon a line that made me feel a surge of emotion - in my gut, my chest, my throat, and my face. I had the beginning of tears in my eyes, started gasping a bit, and had to bend over due to the "weight" of it all. I tried to continue writing but couldn't get too far. The line that I came up with felt "raw." I didn't burst out crying though.

I tend to be overly analytical. So I'm wondering whether I've found my true purpose. Perhaps I will see things a little clearer once I have a good night's sleep.

Below is my (possibly) true purpose. There are two parts. The first line struck something in me (more than the others) when I first read it. The second part was actually the line that got me emotional after reviewing it. I've decided to combine the two for now.

"My True Purpose in life is

to be an open conduit for compassion and wisdom and

to provide a safe haven for creative souls to emerge."

Feedback welcome.

[Shorebird]

I am not sure what kind of feedback you want.

Had I been in your position conducting the test with the results you mentioned, I would have inferred that I want to be a teacher/guide/counsellor/psychiatrist/psychologist/ or a social worker.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

Those sound great.

Now that you have your purpose down, you can explore ways to live it in the world.

Do you have any ideas about how to implement your purpose yet?

[Angela]

Originally Posted by Rapid

"My True Purpose in life is to be an open conduit for compassion and wisdom and to provide a safe haven for creative souls to emerge."

Hi, Rapid -- how wonderful that you are boldly distinguishing your purpose in life! congratulations!

I wonder if the reason it's not *SMACK*-landing for you is that the wording is passive, while you yourself are much more dynamic. What I mean is: :being a conduit" and "providing a safe haven" are beneficial and inspiring, but do they really light you on fire, and give you a reason to get out of bed in the morning? Somehow I see you as more of a creator and an initiator.

Do you think it might be worth looking at this same purpose, but wording it in a way that reflects the bold, inspiring, force in the world that you are? For instance, rather than being a conduit, being a generator? Rather than being a safe haven, being the bold creative source?

Just suggestions. I think you are onto something big, a purpose in life that will have you very satisfied and fulfilled!

[Angela]

p.s. to Shorebird... one of the most amazing things about an inspiring purpose in life is that it's not just "in order to" figure out your career -- when you are living on purpose, you are actually generating an inspiring way of being in every area of your life: relationships, family, health & vitality, creative expression, personal growth, career, etc. etc.

Distinguising your purpose is a great way to light up the path to living a life you're head over heels in love with; one that will have you someday looking back with your dying breath and thinking, "WOW!!! What a ride this has been!"

[Shorebird]

Very true Angela...

[Rapid]

Shorebird: You are correct. I do see my role in life as a teacher.

aspire_to_clarity: I see myself writing, giving talks, and consulting.

Angela: That's insightful. I didn't even think about the wording! I'm looking at some of the other ones that I've come up with. A lot of them are more active in wording. Some examples are:

To live my life adventurously, authentically, creatively, etc., etc.
To promote truth.
To express my authentic self and help others do the same.

While positive, none of them produced the same depth of emotion that I experienced last night. Is there a reason why this would be?

Perhaps I shall try re-wording and see what happens.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by Rapid

While positive, none of them produced the same depth of emotion that I experienced last night. Is there a reason why this would be?

Sure! Because you haven't yet boldly looked inside for your inner truth, asking yourself for an inspiring purpose and adding in this new, more dynamic wording, factor. I'm pretty confident that once you give yourself time and space to really look for your truth, you will come up with something that knocks your socks off.

[Rapid]

Sorry, I meant to post this earlier, but I've been having trouble login in!

Shorebird: In terms of feedback, I guess I was wondering whether other people experienced intense emotions (whether positive or negative, crying, etc.) while undertaking Steve's exercise.

Angela: You are correct that I am generally an initiator and creator. I tend to stall if I see too many details (and if I don't simplify those details) and become overwhelmed, and if my progress is blocked.

I find it interesting that it takes a purpose statement worded passively (instead of actively) to make me feel like crying.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by Rapid

I find it interesting that it takes a purpose statement worded passively (instead of actively) to make me feel like crying.

I wonder, then, if part of what you're wanting to actively do is generate and create something more receptive or enabling, like acceptance, transparency, transforming.... you know what I mean? Maybe there is something really inspiring to you about letting go and being flow.

[evrgrn3]

I looked at Steve's 20 minute exercise and I like what it is teaching. One needs to clear the mind to connect to the core being.

By dumping your mental angst onto a sheet of paper until you hit an emotional fire wall is indeed good medicine. It clarifies the mind, opens the heart, and gives you a chance to find a primal desire or urge. That primal urge is deep within you and has been waiting to get out for a while.

Now what? I think the impact of this exercise is suited for those who are ready to really take in what their deepest motivators are and USE them! Once you know what you are, once you know what your vision is, ya gotta use it!

The next step is putting it into action, not forgetting that it exists. You life meaning might make you cry, might make you laugh, and might make you somber. Regardless, without action, it will not make you anything.

So you found:

"My True Purpose in life is

to be an open conduit for compassion and wisdom and

to provide a safe haven for creative souls to emerge."

Beautifully put, nicely conceived, and potentially life altering -- but what are you going to do next with it? What kind of open conduit? What exactly is an open conduit? How do you personally define Compassion? How do you personally define Wisdom? What type of safe haven will you create? How do you define a creative soul? And once you figure out who they are...how will they emerge?

Your statement is awesome...so how will it translate into your life and your calling?

Peace

[Louise Gilbert]

Dear Rapid,

I'm that driven about finding purpose I'm always observing new ways in which people connect to their authenticity. On my blog site The Lantern-Bearer » About This Place I have placed two pages which will enable you to calculate your purpose according to numerology - calculate your Life Path, Calculate your Destiny. I'd be fascinated to see what yours comes out as! If you prefer and don't mind, post your date of birth and full birth name on here and I'll let you know on this blog!

[vapourmile]

I'm with evergrn on this. I've noticed that this site feels like it's populated mostly by Americans. That's a good thing. But I'm English, yeah and like the English do, I'm about to rain on the parade.

The reason I think nationality is relevant is that one thing that is seen celebrated much more across the Atlantic from me is what we'd call emotionalism. TV presenters are repeatedly seen fishing to get the tears welling for the camera, some American TV presenters are like vampires for it. Over here we're not so sure about it. You must have heard the expression "stiff upper lip" which refers to importance of not making public emotional outbursts, adults are more looked at as people who don't cry about it, they get on with what needs to be done. You could quote the "don't cry over spilled milk" ethic. You don't burst into tears, you get a cloth.

Now I'm pretty sure this won't be met with much warmth and I'm not totally trying to make a judgement call here except to make the observation that values are a learned thing, not an absolute matter.

It's also true that New Age sentiments have made much more progress in the states than over here. I think it's safe to assume it's for just the reasons I've mentioned.

My doubt revolves around the fact that the life purposes I have seen named are far from personal. They represent just the kind of absolutist view of highest moral good that you'd learn if you were exposed to a lot of New Age material. I mean, as highest purposes go, it's all sounding derivative of idealism to me.

It also sounds, like too many New Age adherents do, sanctimonious and presumptuous, as if to suggest that all normal people are not struck by these same thoughts.

Do you think that soldiers are not driven by precisely the same human mechanism which wishes to make the world a better, safer place for creative souls?

Just like evergrn suggest, it matter not a bit how altruistic your dream is. There is a whole body of ethics devoted to the realisation that principles are utterly useless and void. You're beliefs and ideas pale when set against the question of what you're actually doing.

One could argue the "war on terrorism", a ridiculous oxymoron in itself as there are clearly only wars OF terrorism, was set into action under the auspices of this very same ethic. Well, that and our respective heads of state wanting to make history and be remembered for making tough decisions that is. They certainly mentioned it enough.

I have all sorts of extremely impressive sounding ideas about what I want to do, but without an organised plan of action. Amongst which, this is part of the plan, to clarify and explain beliefs and, in particular, dismantle the bogus ethics on which so much social life is founded.

1.You know what I'd like to do? Enlighten and liberate everybody, every living thing in fact, on the globe.
2.Arrange a world-party and invite everybody, everything to it.
3.Have an introduce yourself to a stranger day.
4.Return the earth to the state it was in when we humans found it: Eden.
5.Encourage people to believe that what you're looking for is not something you can put in a bank, or your house, or find on the Internet. The gold you're looking for is found in the eyes of the person nearest to you.
6.Encourage people to believe he next person you pass in the street is your best friend. Why? Because if there's a crisis you may have to rely on that person to save your life, no matter what they look like.
7.Shatter aspiration. They say enlightenment is the greatest disappointment. One of the reasons for this is the first moment I had a completely clear mind, I very quickly realised that for all the time I had wasted thinking I was special, wanting to be special, wanting to do something special, in fact, what I will always be, is a completely ordinary human being, just like you.

You know whose aspirations I most respect? Road sweepers. The people who take out the trash. The people who clean. Not just for themselves, but for others. One of the most impressive things a stranger did for me when I first met him in a house we were about to share was wash my plate. You want an ambition that's truly meaningful? Buy yourself a floor brush.

As for enlightening the world, I told a friend about this and he said "But you don't need to, everybody is already free".

The point is, how easy it is sit here in front of the PC and make up the most lofty ambition I can dream up. If you're not doing it, it's just doo doo.

I respect the lady who serves my coffee in the morning. A cheerful and friendly service is what you need to achieve. In the end, the person who was best servant is made king.

Interestingly, Tim Berners Lee the man who invented the World Wide Web, the internet standards which allow you to have web sites like this one, regards himself as a public servant. Now that IS inspiring news! He didn't even ask for any money... now look at it... the world wide web.

Tim Berners-Lee

[Angela]

vapourmile, at the risk of being reductionist and emotional, it looks to me like your inspiring purpose is to be of service, to be contribution!

Here in these threads we've been talking about how to distinguish an inspiring purpose for ourselves, and it may look to you like there is no intention to act on that inspiration. Please keep in mind that the "purpose" threads are pretty specialized; in other threads we talk about how to actualize the purpose or how it's showing up in our lives, but sometimes we focus in specifically on distinguishing it. I agree with you that a purpose living under a glass bell, untouched, isn't worth much. And I think the people who participate here are interested in inspired action.

You're right that inspiring purposes tend to all sound familiar -- we all have so many of them in common! Purposes that involve love, peace, contribution, freedom... we are seeing some things that we all want, things we all want to generate.

And...declaring a special "genius" or dynamic intention to live purposefully is a tool we give to ourselves, so that we can boldly make a difference, so that we can see for ourselves, in a specific and measurable way, if we're satisfied that we're living a life of inspired action. Of course, some people, sometimes, will not be satisfied that they are living lives of inspired action, and some people, sometimes, will not care. But please consider that the folks here are really up to something.... making a difference, and being in love with their lives. We're generating making a difference, right now in our lives in a practical way, nothing spooky or whoo-whooo about it. You can rain on the parade, but is that how you want to make your difference?

Looking at the list of your seven special intentions, I think you are up to something really wonderful yourself!

( By the way, my new special sweetheart of feeling good on purpose is Paul McKenna, who is, of course, a Brit! )

[vapourmile]

Yeah, Paul McKenna, he's good. He really is trying to do the best he can for people. He says himself "I'm not trying to claim to have all the answers, or even some of the answers for everybody, I'm just trying to share all of the answers I know of that are most likely to work".

As for the service ethic. It's not my idea. I picked it up from Hindu, and it made a lot of things make sense. I'm not even really trying to say I subscribe to it I just think if you have any kind of ambition, unless you indent to live under that proverbial bell jar forever, service has to be included in it. I mean, unless you're going to sit in a soft-cell and paint the walls, common sense tells you it has to be inclusive. Which is covered mostly these days by the tasks of either getting people what they want, carrying what people want, knowing how to direct people to what they want, or setting up the mechanisms which achieve any of the above.

I also use the service ethic (in other contexts that are more suitable then this one) to defend the rich who are too often regarded as immoral by the poor. Sure there have been stories of people making it rich by robbing trains, but the truth is that most rich people get rich by serving the interests of the population. Meaning that "entrepreneur" is basically the French word for somebody who organises the creation and supply of services. Sure, they do it at a price but people are willing to pay gratitude, it's the foundation of civilisation itself, I see little wrong with that. What I'm saying is, it's an outright fallacy to believe the possession of riches make you a bad person. I'm rich, I should know. Quite often it takes a hell of good person to get the work done that earns it. So less cussing the rich, because it isn't any more sign of character flaw than poverty is, or mediocrity or destitution for that matter. Do I sound English enough yet?

Oops... mass tangent there... and I'm not even saying there's anything wrong with your palpably clichéd ideas of your ultimate moral purposes. I'm saying, don't make is a big deal. We ALL feel that way. Your talking about it like your uncovering something hidden or new or personal or super-special. To want to do something of great worth is common. The hell hole I want to protect you from, is the one dug for the people who think their secret or spoken ambitions make them different and special, the ones who think they're unlike the one who brings the milk in the morning or sits on the front stoop with a beer and a light. Or unlike the one who made a lot of money, or the one waged war on the East. As Shakespeare said "There is nothing more ordinary than the desire to do extraordinary things". We are all alike in this way.

So next time you see someone shouting in the street, or fighting, or making a mess, don't get to thinking he hasn't already done five hundred times more to save the world than you have.

Wanting to do good things is just great, but you're going to have to get hellishly busy because the people trying to do the same are counted in their hundreds of thousands, millions, and maybe even billions.

What I'm saying is, it's all very woolly and weepy and nice to say "I just want to love and save and protect everyone", but more or less every other adult does too. I'm English, I'm going to stay straight faced until I see the figures. What is actually in progress here other than garden variety idealism?

I want to be God. I want to be super God plus with bells and a cherry on. Is this a big deal? No. It doesn't even ring as something new does it? I'm just like everybody else. But if you're going to idealise, why stop there, why not think even bigger? I'm going to make the whole planet heaven again. You can't even imagine the ecstasy you're all going to feel when I'm finished.

Am I really God though? Well that's a matter of opinion. :P

[Angela]

I think I get what you're saying. And your warning for us not to engage the ego in declaring our purpose -- to be careful not to think we're special by declaring an inspiring purpose for ourselves, not to think we're more or better than others just because we have this light to guide our path. You want us to *get* that we're ordinary, and it is a hellhole to consider that we might be extraordinary.

Isn't there something in England called the "Tall Poppy Syndrome"? Don't grow too tall, or you'll get cut down!

So what do you make of my distinguished purpose, the guiding light I use in my own life to see if I'm living in line with inspiration? What numbers and statistics would you need to see in order to grant me the freedom to live my life on purpose? I have some specific measurable goals and accomplishments inspired by my purpose, but the goals and accomplishments are much less important to me than living a life I love, and feeling good on purpose. Do you feel I'm living in a hell-hole, or that I need to be cut down, or that my aspiring to live an extraordinary life means that I believe others are diminished? Or do you think it's possible that by generating a life of purpose, I might be creating this not just for myself, but for the world?

To boldly generate and facilitate free-flowing love and joy.

[vapourmile]

The first thing I'd do, is ask you to as yourself, do you really understand what you're saying?






Are you able to give meaning to it, and, to what extent, if you're honest with yourself, is it more something you enjoy ascribing to yourself because it sounds poetically beautiful? Is it just an icing-sugar flavoured theory?

So, the first statistic I'd ask for is easy: Show me that you mean what you say. I want to know this free flowing love and joy. Show me.

[vapourmile]

There is another expression "The truth is not flavoured sweet, sweet words do not tell the truth"

[vapourmile]

I'd also ask you if you are active in creating this joy for other people, or if you mostly just hope to experience it for yourself? or if it's an idealism in which, you're creating this joy now, but one day you hope to. In perhaps the same way to how I hope Petra Nemcova will come to seek my advice. Hopefully someday soon.

I'd also ask you, are you aware that most of the time the people most active and able to generate good feelings in others, are quite often not the ones feeling those feelings themselves?

A friend of mine put this pretty well in school. He was by far the funniest person in the class. He's even demi-famous, he has never been in the paper or on TV but he has such a reputation by word of mouth people who come from out of town (population 200,000) have heard of him.

He just said to me one day "Who's making me laugh?"

Nobody.

[vapourmile]

You're all of a sudden very slow to answer. What about this truly superb sounding love and joy? I mean, with it being free flowing it's not like it'll cost you, right?

This love and joy thing is already starting just a bit hollow. Dong!

While we're here, I'd also like to win an oscar, maybe three, and a nobel prize.

Sounds good doesn't it?

Like I say it sounds good.

But it's no good.

I once asked a friend of mine, Darren his name was, he gets tetchy when I don't give him credit, which is fair, I said "What does love mean?", he said "Mean? Life is a word. A sound. A ripple of pressure waves in the air."

To know that, you've got to have understanding. In particular, of the worth of words.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by vapourmile

The first thing I'd do, is ask you to as yourself, do you really understand what you're saying?

Yes, I think I get what you mean. A purpose that you can't really understand and resonate with is not a very inspiring one, is it?

What I'm talking about with boldly generating and facilitating free-flowing love and joy is: being alert and awake in situations where I'd like to generate love and joy (which is all of them!), and letting go of what there is to let go of (maybe: resentment? being right? being hurt? -- whatever it is that's getting in my way), and then taking a bold look at bringing love or joy to the conversation or action I'm participating in. That might mean: listening generously, or granting freedom, or actively appreciating, or choosing to trust -- again, whatever it takes.

The facilitating part comes from figuring out what I'm really talented at: building pathways between and among people, and creating space for myself, where love and joy can freely flow and I get to either participate or witness it. Like: coaching people to breakthroughs in areas where they're feeling powerless. Finding front-row tickets to the Black-Eyed Peas for a big fan. Practicing perfect sets for my volleyball partner to really wail on a spike. Turning my boyfriend on to music he's never heard before. Finding and engaging the perfect celebrity speaker for an event. Introducing people from entirely different strata who will benefit each other but otherwise not likely ever meet. Designing systems of paperflow, moneyflow, and energyflow for myself and for others (like my beautiful apartment, or raising donations for my charitable entities). I could go on and on. It's just something to ask myself each night: am I satisfied that I generated and facilitated free-flowing love and joy today? How? What could I do tomorrow?