Purpose--December 30th

PURPOSE—December 30th
Nothing much works in life without purpose. First comes your inspiration, your idea, and then, your intention or purpose. You put that intention out into the universe, focus on it and work toward it and voila, you achieve success. In order to be self-actualizing and responsible, you first need purpose.
Without purpose, you’re like a drunk wandering home after a big toot. You may get there but most likely, you won’t. You may not even remember you have a home or where it is located. Flopping around out there on some footpath or another, you’re at the mercy of highwaymen.
If that’s the case, then your authentic self isn’t deciding your purpose. Chemicals, medications, or soul-sucking individuals have usurped your purpose and you will never be truly happy. Why do you think there are so many depressed people out there? In order to be happy, successful, and your authentic self, you have to find your purpose and put it into action.
I remember reading a novel in which the teenage character was unhappy and behaving badly. His school made him start to spend time with an old man, doing chores to help him out. The old man was a grouch and at first they made each other miserable. Somehow, though, they began to look forward to their time together. The young man started to feel good about himself because he was helping, and the old man started to feel good about himself because he was paid attention to and he could help the young man by sharing his life’s wisdom.
Aha, I thought to myself. If a person’s purpose is to help others, in the very act of that, he is helping himself. You think you are helping someone else, and you are, but at the same time you realize the many ways in which you are learning lesson after lesson. Your one gift is laying many more in your lap.
My soul, my heart, the part of me connected to everything else in the universe lets me know if I have chosen my purpose wisely. I can feel its rightness if I pay attention. I work toward my goal and I’m happy inside. Riches come to me. I am wealthy in results. Sometimes I don’t recognize my treasures because they are not the ones I thought I’d receive but that doesn’t change the fact that they are treasures all the same.
Those treasures aren’t going to arrive, however, without action on my part. I can’t just say here’s my purpose and then stand at my door expecting the arrival of my goal at any moment. I have to work for what I want. Purpose and Action are joined at the hip and you get nowhere without both of them. Both of them together lead to accomplishment, self-knowledge, and serenity.