Life
Purpose: It’s a topic on the minds of many. It’s a question (and an industry)
that’s like the siren’s song, luring us into its depths. What is this yearning
really about?
I
don’t think the question of life purpose is as deep as we make it out to be. I
think what drives the question, frustrates, and confuses us about this is more
about how we want to feel about ourselves than anything else, but we seem to
miss that target more than we aim at and hit it. I think this is because we
don’t know that it’s a real and worthy target. Nor do we want to feel guilty
about or uncomfortable with our choices regarding this matter. Often, we
convince ourselves there’s only One Right Choice, which scares the hell out of
us. This choice isn’t supposed to be like choosing the red pill or the blue
pill in The Matrix movie.
What
led me to this topic was a thought process I was entertaining myself with,
wondering why some people are more compelled to explore and move toward and
into spiritual realization and some are more compelled toward financial and
assets gain (legally or illegally attained), with little to no focus on
spirituality. Is one path better or more valid than the other? I don’t have the
wisdom of Source, so won’t even attempt to answer that question. In fact, it
may be a useless question, like “why” often is. However, I have some thoughts
about this that I’m comfortable sharing.
We
know that one of the Universal Laws is Polarity. This means that everything has
a duality about it, has its pair of opposites that are identical in nature but
different in degree (e.g., hot and cold are polarities of temperature). The Law
of Polarity is a mutable law, which means whatever goes on can be transcended.
For example, there are positive and negative thoughts, but both are thoughts,
and either of them can be shifted. If things are not going well, you can shift
your thoughts so that you aren’t overwhelmed by your negative thoughts and can
affirm Truths that lift you up. If things are going well, you can sabotage
yourself with negative thinking. Polarity
keeps momentum going so that stagnation doesn’t occur. We are meant to be
stimulated into inner and or outer action by the polarities we experience.
Back
to life purpose or what we’re meant to do in this life. What if your driving
question is how to attain more money and stuff, and the spirituality aspect
takes a backseat or isn’t even in the car? It’s possible you’re attuned to
having a primarily physical-material experience in this lifetime—for your own
soul’s purposes, whatever they may be. If this is your path, this driving force
in your life is but a line on the abundance-prosperity polarity graph. Maybe
it’s extreme for you and you must become or do become a millionaire or
billionaire. Maybe it’s moderate. Maybe it’s low, at the other end of the
spectrum. Perhaps along the way, or in your more mature years, your spiritual
aspect quietly nudges you to ask how you, in your physical-material mindset,
can contribute to your life and the lives of others, and how you (and maybe
others) can evolve as a result. After all, you could be a generous, caring
billionaire who does numerous large and small truly good works from the heart,
and never consciously or deliberately entertain a spirituality-related thought
in this lifetime.
What
if your driving question is about how you can contribute to your life and the
lives of others as well as have a deeply spiritual experience in a
physical-material environment? This may lead you to shift back and forth
between figuring out how to exist and evolve in both, for your own soul’s
purposes. You may find yourself on the extreme end of this measuring stick and
be the person who meditates in a cave and relies on others to bring food,
water, and other supplies to you. Or you may feel that trying to do both
materiality and spirituality creates contradictions within you—because you
question the importance of doing what helps sustain you and your life versus
pursuing or attaining spiritual realization. Your question about this may block
the balance you can experience so that you have all you need in both areas. We
see it all the time: the spirituality-based person who struggles to sustain his
or her life. Not only is their struggle an inner one, but an outer one as well:
there are people who question why such people charge for their services, and
believe the services should be free or nominal because they are spiritual in
nature. However, no one argues about fees with a plumber when they need one.
You
might assess the two “paths” above as polarities, but both contribute to our
unified experiences of life. We cannot all sit in caves, figuratively and or
literally speaking. We cannot all focus solely on tangible and financial
assets. Both materiality and spirituality are needed for life to flourish.
Whichever one of these polarity paths you fit into at this time, we are all
meant to process experiences and evolve in some measure as a result of them.
It’s up to each of us to figure out how we
will express ourselves while here. And this may be in one way
or a number of ways. But it is about what we enjoy, what we are good at, what
we are interested in, short-term and or long-term, and what and how we
contribute to a few or the many. And what we contribute may be in some large or
grand way or through numerous small kindnesses that ripple outward in a
returns-to-you and a pay-it-forward sort of way.
I’ve
had a number of incarnations in this
lifetime. I started out as a singer, winning awards and scholarships, and
training for the opera. Then amid other make-a-living-based and life
experiences, I became an artist in three mediums and did 600 pieces of art in 5
years. There were gallery showings with awards and where all my art sold,
individual and corporate commissions, retail shops with sales, and a few
individuals who collected my work. Then I got into writing and editing, with a
stretch as a life empowerment coach thrown into the middle of this. These days,
I balance my place in that second description above (physical-spiritual) by
writing my weekly articles—like the one you’re reading now—and include them in
my weekly newsletter that also highlights the spirituality-based works of guest
experts each week. But the other thing I do, which helps sustain my life and my
passion for words and the tapestries they weave, is services for writers,
especially new writers. This work drives my bus! Simultaneous to this, I’m
always increasing, expanding, and evolving my spiritual solidity and spiritual
realization, which also drives my bus. I no longer question which one is to
have more importance (I used to do that). I’ve landed in the flowering field of
whole-beingness: Everything I do contributes something, in some way, to me and
to others. I grasp the importance of both materiality and spirituality for this
experience I’m having, just as one coin has two sides. I’ve become keenly aware
that I cannot do one without affecting or influencing the other.
I
share some of my own story so you can see that you can follow your path in your own way. You are meant to. Your path
can lead you until the moment you’re ready to lead yourself and choose what it
is you wish to do that fulfills you on all levels or on as many levels as
possible for the moment or for a lifetime. What you are meant to do is find
your bliss, as Joseph Campbell said. Only you know or can determine what that
is. And it may not be in one way only. What
you’re meant to do—your life purpose—is a feeling,
not an action or a thing or a person. Find
your feeling. It’s your song,
your dance, your life. And it will influence whatever you choose to do and how
you choose to express it.
One
line of dialogue said by Professor Dumbledore to Harry Potter that always
speaks to me is this: “It is not our
abilities that show who we are, but our choices.” You can have stellar
skills, talents, and abilities and waste them or be too afraid to explore and
demonstrate them for your benefit and or the benefit of others. You can be
great at what you do and also be an assoholic.
You can do one thing or a number of things well that provides enough income to
keep you surviving or thriving and also be a person others love, respect,
trust, rely on, and want the company of. You can show people what you can do
and you can show people who you are. Your choices will do that by default,
anyway.
Rather
than wondering so much about what you should be doing or showing others what
you can do so you earn approval, focus more on who you want to be and show
yourself, as well as others, who you really are. And if you make or have made
choices you wish you hadn’t or regret, forgive yourself; decide to choose a
better way if ever faced with a similar choice. You always have the choice to
do and be better.
Stephen
Covey said, "But until a
person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the
choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise." What we are meant to do in this life is
makes choices, preferably conscious ones rather than reactive ones; though, we
usually (hopefully) realize at some point that this is part of our path we are
here to travel. We can makes choices that support us or seemingly don’t. I say
seemingly don’t, because sometimes you get where you’re going by traveling a
back road rather than a superhighway. We can make choices that contribute to
one or many others, or choices that detract. Choose to contribute in ways
appropriate for you and for others. Sometimes what this means to you requires
you to figure it out for yourself, but it’s a terrific form of GPS for a more
satisfying life.
Choices
are stepping stones on our path of experiences. The ones we choose to step on
determine our destination. Whatever we choose, we live with the consequences or
desired results of our choices. You might say that what you are meant to do is
choose who you wish to be and be who you are meant to be, for your own purposes
and based on how you intend to feel about yourself and your life, so that you
align your choices with that. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.
Practice makes progress.
© Joyce L. Shafer
You are welcome to use this article in your
newsletter or on your blog/website as long as you use my complete bio with it.
Joyce L. Shafer is a Life Empowerment
Coach dedicated to helping people feel, be, and live their true inner power.
She’s author of “I Don’t Want to be Your Guru, But I Have Something to Say” and
other books/e-books, and publishes a free weekly online newsletter that offers
empowering articles. See all that’s offered by Joyce and on her site at http://stateofappreciation.weebly.com
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