Life Purpose: Why Some People Just Don’t Get it
Photo by Mrs. Maze
Life purpose. Some people just don’t get it.
Then again, some people want everyone else’s life purpose to match theirs. This is really rather…normal. We live our lives by a certain theme and we cannot understand why someone else isn’t as passionate about that theme as we are.
If you’re a long-time fan of my personal blog or if you’ve read some of the more recent editions of my Third Degree Diary self-help journals, you know the story of how I discovered my life purpose and how I use it as a guideline for everything I do. You know, too, how much more smoothly my life has been going since I started adhering to my life purpose rather than letting myself be talked into everyone else’s good cause.
My life purpose is to celebrate being different by connecting with the energies around me and sharing my experiences with others.
Every time I’ve ventured away from that one mission statement, both before–and yes, even after–I knew my life purpose, I’ve gotten my ass kicked. I learned the hard way to use life purpose as a rigid guideline that I do not step beyond. Much of this past year, I’ve been putting behind me things I’ve done in the past that did not match my life purpose–things that manifested over time even after learning my lessons, things long in the works and not easily ended–and if anything, seeing the cause and effect of not living by my life purpose has made me even more determined to hold the course.
That doesn’t stop people from trying to convince me to do something that really isn’t in my best interests, no matter how good a cause it seems. It’s been important to me, too, to make sure my business, my personal life, my home life, my career, my spirituality–everything–matches up with my life purpose. Life just flows when it does.
Occasionally, I find other people who share my life purpose, and that’s wonderful, but since my life purpose is MY life purpose, I really prefer that the people around me aren’t clones of every desire or passion I have.
Where I come into conflict is with other people who are passionate about their life purposes. They’ve each found their life purpose, whether they realize it or not, and they’re adamant about fulfilling it as well as having my help to do it. In fact, many would rather I forgot all about MY life purpose and committed myself to THEIRS. No matter how often I say sweetly, “That’s your life purpose, not mine, so why don’t you want to do it yourself?” they still don’t get it and they try to be somewhere between persuasive and manipulative–and sometimes tyrannical–to get me to commit my time and resources to their life purpose.
And of course, they don’t understand. A colleague of mine once wanted me to work with her on some wonderful projects, very high-vibrational and spiritual work that involved empowering women who’d been abused. Yes, very much a worthy cause and one my heart agrees with, but it’s not MY life purpose. What she couldn’t see was that it was most definitely her purpose. I had a very limited amount of time and other resources to put on my projects and I chose, instead of one that empowered abused women, to put my time toward a project that shared my specific experiences and personal transformation work. It wasn’t that working with abused women was any lesser or greater than my project or that I was in any way discounting it. It simply didn’t fit my life purpose. I could encourage her and give her emotional support and cheer her on, but my time, money, and energy were meant to be spent on a different project that would have gone undone had I put my resources on hers.
This seems to be the week for future bestselling authors, ones with great ideas, but so far, none of them have anything to so with Spilled Candy’s purpose or my life purpose. So many authors never bother to read up on a publisher before submitting, or else they’d know that a foreign language translation of a celebrity’s golf how-to book just doesn’t fit into Spilled Candy’s books about Celtic God rituals, shamanic journeys, or witch wars.
Last week, a marketeer who has NO IDEA what Spilled Candy publishes and has apparently never even visited the website or The Spiritual Eclectic, called with an offer for me–a celebrity expose’ guaranteed to make Spilled Candy and me millions of dollars. Okay, so I really doubt the millions of dollars part.
The advocate was passionate. It didn’t take me long to figure out that this person’s purpose was to act as a champion for people who were victims of their own violent behaviors. While I found this person’s passion, though perhaps not motives, quite admirable, they had nothing whatsoever to do with the Law of Attraction, Wicca, angels, paganism, spirituality, transformation, self-improvement, parenting, self-help, religion, enlightenment or any of the things that I strive to share my experiences about with others.
Her passion turned to upset toward me though because I refused to be swayed into accepting a project that had nothing to do with my life purpose and, to some degree, was directly contrary to it, regardless of the money. This person was offering me a cut of what was believed to be–and honestly, it probably will be when it hits the stands–an insane amount of money with what was perceived as little effort on my part, so why wouldn’t I take it? I guess it was my week to be tested, three times in a row, and hopefully I passed the test when I said no three times in a row. Hmmm, sounds like a spell, doesn’t it?!
If another publisher picks up the book–and I do think someone will snap it up–and it makes a fortune, then great. Will I regret it? Not one bit. A wonderful peace of mind comes with knowing your purpose…and not being swayed.
*****
If you enjoyed this post, try these:
Life Improvements/Finding Happiness/Positive Thinking
HOT 7 Tips to Stop Getting Advice You Don’t Want
Body Image: Are You a Temple or a Tool?
Body Positives: Getting Personal but Keeping It PG
Defining Contentment
Do Something New: An Unexpected Weekend Among the Trees
Don’t Pity Me
Enjoying My Flaws
Home Is Where the Spirit Is
How to Love Mondays
How to Make It Better
The Bracelet Challenge
The Best Advice a Teen Ever Gave Her Mom
The Miracle of Bad Things
The To-Don’t List
Why Some People Will Never Be Happy
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Our Purpose is clearly visable to those who seek the answers. I really enjoyed the way this article presents the case for purpose. Very often, a person seeks their Purpose at work. Far too often in fact. However, the connection between business success and business failure is obvious to those who want to scratch beneath the surface. It involves “purpose” and seeking goals above and beyond our trivial matters. In my new HR book, Wingtips with Spurs, the longest chapter in the book is devoted to the spirit and the successful career. It also covers the connectiveness of our actions and the important of spiritual wisdom.
To michaellgooch — Absolutely! and thanks for dropping by. That’s so right, too, about how people look for their purpose at work…trying to make their purpose fit the work they do rather than the other way around. I’ve found that every “big moneymaker” presented to me that wasn’t in my life purpose has cost me dearly.
Wow. This is a fantastic post about how to clearly define your life’s path. I know from experince that continually going off on tangents created by others onyl ever leads to dead ends and then you also have to get back on your own track. This is something I’ve been considering a lot lately and have done both physical and mental clearing work in an attempt to define my own purpose more clearly.
You have truly helped me to see, not only that I am right to do the things I have, but also to wish to.
Thanks.