PRIMARY PURPOSE

Complete this sentence: My primary purpose in life is to_____.

The pursuit of happiness in the span of time between birth and death is not our primary purpose for being here. I apologize if I have burst your bubble. If you constructed a story board and the pursuit of happiness is a focal point, may I suggest that you might a bit unhappy. This is my opinion, and you have the choice of disagreement.

Happiness is contingent upon circumstances, attitude and other people, too many contingencies for my taste. When we do the work in other areas (knowing who you are and how to be true to that), happiness may happen, or it may not. Ultimately, what happens between gasping our first bit of oxygen to releasing our last bit of carbon dioxide is mostly uncontrollable. I offer the global pandemic as exhibit A. Few, if any, of us would have chosen this as our fate for the last two plus years. I have yet to have a face to face or zoom encounter with anyone who has expressed happiness over wearing a face mask, getting poked in the upper arm a few times, and securing an endless supply of hand sanitizer. However, many discovered ways to be content. Some of us discovered our purpose or have an increased desire to do so.

I would like to propose we think more along the line of the pursuit of purpose versus happiness. In the pursuit of purpose, happiness in all probability will materialize – maybe not instantly but it does happen.

Here is how I know this to be true. Looking for my “next” – my purpose, is how I reached this current iteration of me as a writer. I wasn’t unhappy with my life. I knew a change was coming at some point. I like being prepared so I asked friends and family to read my thoughts for three weeks. Did I have an answer at the end of that period? I did not. I gained insight about my thinking process and discovered a freedom in writing for expressing my thoughts. None of this happened instantly. It took several years to embrace the fact that pursuing my purpose led to writing. Writing makes me happy but being happy is not my primary purpose. Writing and sharing my feeble and anemic thoughts with the hope that writer and reader will live differently is my purpose. This discovery has invaded almost every other area of my life.

Claiming my purpose has helped me to corral some of those contingencies and to focus more strategically on what I can control. And yes, most days I am happy.

Proverbs 20:5

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---Everyone wants to know the answer to “Why am I here?