What Is Your Purpose In Life? - Part 2

Yesterday, I had introduced this topic and taken a good look at it and how we sometimes are unable to actually decide what our purpose in life is; I also did mention that the sole purpose of life here on earth is to LIVE it - to find that something that brings us joy and happiness and to do it.

From the interactions I had on the matter it is obvious that not all agree with me on that.

Some people feel that the only purpose in life is to find God's Will for us and to do it.

Whichever side of the divide you are on, I would like to conclude this matter today with some tips on how to find our purpose in life.

There are basically 7 questions to ask and provide answers to that would help anyone find their rhythm in life

1.     What do you suck at?

In life sometimes every thing sucks; this means thaat "nothing is pleasurable for a long time"

There are always sacrifices to be made, compromises to be reached in achieving any tangible objective.

Life is a struggle and to find your rhythm, you have to choose what struggle you can tolerate, what sacrifices you are willing to make. If for example you want to be a great Surgeon but can't stand the sight of blood, then definitely you can't make it to the Medical School in the first place. If your happiness lies in paintings but you can't stand people criticizing your works, surely you'ld need to look for another thing to do.

So, go choose your struggle.

2.     What are you passionate about?

What is it that gets your attention completely fixed at it that you forget to sleep or eat or even take your bath?

What is it that catches your fancy so much that that you are willing to forgo all other things just to pursue that?

Do you know that Isaac Newton while he was young, would go for days without sleeping because he was tweaking and thinkering with his experiments and theories, to the point that even his mother go tired of having to constantly "wake him up to reality" - that of eating his food to stay alive!!! and when Newton was done, he became one of the greatest Physicists that ever lived.

So what is your passion? What do you obsess over and about?

Finding your passion is like a full - contact sport, you just have to be in touch with it because if you've not done it, there's no way you can tell if you like it or not.

3.     Release the little child in you!!

No matter how much any adult wants to deny it, but the fact is that there is a little boy in every grown adult man and there is a little girl in every grown adult woman.

These little children cry every day in our heads and minds asking to be released - they still want to play naked in the rain, they still want to build castles with sand, they still want to play hide and seek e.t.c. - all those games that little children of ages past used to play.

And it is of a good note that most successful people have really learnt to integrate the yearnings of the little children in them to their adult actions and activities - they are never too old or too big to relate to the little children in them.

So, are you still stultifying the cry of the little child in you - flow with it and see......

4.     Choose your moments of embarrassment!

If you are not willing to be embarrassed while trying to do something important, something that gives you a sense of fulfillment, something that brings you joy and happiness, makes your face very radiant even in a dark room, something that makes your lips to part in a raucous laughter that reverberates all around, then you would never arrive there.

If you allow your life to be ruled by "What will people say?", if you allow the thoughts of what other people will think or say about your action or what you are doing, then you have a long way to go.

This is because the basic fact is - no one actually cares what you do - people are more comfortable with you if you are at the same level with them - failure - than if you are heading above them and making a success of yourself.

And the truth of the matter really is that it doesn't really matter what you do, people will always talk. If you do they talk and if you don't do, they even talk more. So what the heck!!! go do that which you have been fantasizing over in your head for a long while and been putting off because you don't know how people will react to it - it's only in the doing that you would guage the people's reaction and by the way this is your LIFE.

5.     Set your standards

We are all born into a society that tends to make us conformists and tend to ostracize us when we show some independency of thought and action, when we take a step across and over the social boundary built by the society.

While it is good to have social norms and dictates to guide our social interactions but it is not just proper and fair for the society to decide for me who I should be or what I should do with my life.

So if you are like me, draw up your own set of standards and break them!! draw up your own rules and break them (rules are meant to be broken any way otherwise how would Governments make extra money without the fines) - take a leap to the 9th Heaven, Geniuses are not earth-held, be a Genius; allow yourself to fly far above everyone else

6.     Always follow your heart

In discovering your purpose in life, - flow with your heart.

Be where your heart is, anyother thing aside this is a pretence and a fake and it is also a lie and the worst sin of man is "living a lie".

In your heart lives the "still Small Voice" of God and it is there to guide you aright.

If you ever listen to your heart at every occasion, you would notice that the loud voice always eggs you on - sometimes to destruction but the still small voice comforts and admonishes.

Where a man's heart is, that is where his treasures are. No man grows at a job he does not have the calling for, where his heart is not; it is very frustrating, but if a man works his passion, it is no longer a job.

Follow your heart always, it is the first deep thought on any issue and most times it is never wrong.

So get involved in what you think you are passionate about and know if truly your heart is in it.

7.     How would you like to be remembered?

Have you ever had a discussion with yourself about your death?

If you have not, I suggest that you do!! because when you do that, you'ld find out that because you don't know when, how and where it will take place, you cannot but maximize the time you have left.

Death comes to the newborn, infact even to the yet to be born; to the child; to the adolescent; to the young adult; to the middle aged; to the old and elderly - it is not a respecter of age or status or personality and am sure you know that the worst thing about death is that NOBODY KNOWS WHEN S/HE WILL DIE but as for dying, that is obvious.

So how would you like to be remembered when you are dead and gone with eyes that can no longer see and ears that can no longer hear?

Would you like to be remembered as the one who had a life but did not know how to live it? as one who died at 30 but was eventually buried at 70?

Would you like to be remembered as the brilliant chap who had load of ideas, but none of which came to the lime light and he died with his dreams?

Or would you like to be remembered as Napoleon Bonaparte who declared "I came, I saw, I conquered"

The choice is obviously yours

Ask yourself this question- "What would I do if I knew that I had one year left to live?"

Answer it and just go to work doing that which will set you apart and above your peers, your competitors and every other person in your circle.

Take the time to re-evaluate your priorities

Let me end this treatise with these quotes from Mark Manson

" When people feel like they have no sense of  direction and purpose in their lives, it's because they don't know what's important to them.

They don't know what their values are and when you don't know what your values are, you are bound to take on other people's values and living other people's priorities instead of your own

Discovering one's purpose in life essentially boils down to finiding those one or two things that are bigger than yourself, bigger than those around you.

And to find them, you must get out of your comfort zone and act"

Be yourself - start TODAY!!!

That's it my friends

Thank you for reading and do let me know your thoughts about this topic.

Have a swell day

Thank God It's Friday

#TGIF

#DrJTF

Your Brother and Friend