I have been thinking a lot about a person’s purpose lately. I think humans can put a lot of investment into figuring out their purpose or finding what is meaningful about their life. I have, for a long time, believed that we cannot always know our purpose, but that is okay because we will ultimately fulfill it if is it indeed our purpose.
If I am put on this planet to be an athlete, I will be an athlete. I will be born into a body that is adaptable to athleticism. I might have a brain that has a competitive mindset. I might be born into a family that pushes me to be better athletically. If I don’t get the body of an athlete or a supportive or encouraging family, but I am supposed to be an athlete, then something else will happen to inspire me to that goal. People in athletics don’t say it is their purpose. Sometimes they say something more like it chose them. By the way, I am not an athlete. It is not my purpose.
Look at fabulous musicians or singers. The people who can play by ear or read music at age 3, right? These are people who have a purpose born into them. It is easy. They are here for that. It is their purpose. There is nothing anyone could do to stop them from being a musician. Like no one can stop someone destined to be an athlete. I am also not a musician. I have tried. It is not my purpose.
I am a teacher. I was a teacher from the earliest moment I can remember. Learning, which is the first rule of being a good teacher, is not something I can resist. First, the teacher learns, then they teach. I am curious, and love to share what I learn with others. I enjoy inspiring people to become aware of new things and ideas. I love to watch that moment that a light bulb goes off in the eyes of someone I am working with where they go, “Oh, yes, that is amazing to know!” I love it so much, I started doing it without any training or experience in it from when I was very, very young. I have since received a lot of training to do it. I have sought out this training so that I can be better at it. It is in my nature, and my being to learn, and to teach. It is one of my purposes.
Though, one day, I may retire and no longer earn a paycheck to “teach”, I am certain that I will continue to be a teacher to many people. I don’t know what that looks like, but since teaching has not always been my job, and I have always done it in some way or another, I am certain that it will always be a part of who I am. I do not have to find my purpose. I am my purpose, and there is nothing anyone could have done to stop me from fulfilling it, not even me. It chose me.
We might assume that people have only one purpose. This is not a true statement. Humans can have only one purpose, I suppose, but most humans have many roles or purposes to be or become while they live on the Earth. Most of these are the kind of things that go completely unnoticed by self and others. Like, one purpose a person might have is to be a source of a specific type of energy to the world. This type of energy might be positive, negative, neutral, encouraging, loving, patient, kind, graceful, or destructive. Yes, while we might assume that all of the reasons or purposes for people on the planet must be a good thing for the planet, that might not actually be true. There is the inevitability of Yin and Yang, balance, no light without darkness, no sun without moon, etc. We can’t only have people who have purposes that are to uplift and heal. For there to be a need for uplifting and healing, there needs to be people who are here to harm and tear down. If you look around right now, in the news, I can see people who might have this type of purpose. Like they are here simply to be destructive, and like my purpose of being a teacher, there is nothing anyone could have done or can do to stop them from fulfilling this purpose. The destroyers need to exist if the heroes also need to exist. Who is Super Man without Lex Luthor? No one! Right?
Going back to how we might think our purpose is singular, as in, one life’s purpose, but it probably isn’t. If we are here to be a destroyer, that does not mean we are only a destroyer. Have you known destructive people who also do good things? They do exist, so people can be more than one thing, can have more than one reason to be here. It also means that once you find a purpose, if that ends at some point, like you lose a skill, become disabled, age out of a talent or role, you are not done. There is still a plan for you. You don’t have to rush out and find it though. Know that whatever it is, it is already who you are, and how you are to become or use it will happen without effort from you. Just like whatever purpose you may have had before this one. Your purpose is who you are, not what you do. There is nothing you can do to not fulfill it. Just being yourself is fulfilling your purpose in life. That is all you have to do. If being you does not earn money, and you need money, you can find a job to pay you to do something. This might also turn out to be another purpose for you, and it might also just be a job to pay the bills. This is also fine. You will still fulfill your purpose or purposes.
A purpose is not necessarily a grandiose thing that we will become famous for. Well, for some of us, we will be famous. Most of us though, we will possibly never be recognized as having any special purpose. It doesn’t mean we don’t. How we go through life, the things we do or do not do, the energy we bring and share with the world, what we keep to ourselves, what we become, learn and simply are, is exactly what we were created as humans to be and do. We cannot screw it up or miss it. It is what we were destined to be. If at any moment you start to feel like you have lost your purpose, remind yourself that it is impossible to not fulfill your purpose. Existing and being you IS your purpose, and whatever you contribute to the world in every moment you are alive is meaningful to what you were sent here to be and do. Just be you. It is always enough.
The hard part is when that destiny includes really horrible things. In my case, it included years of depression, abuse, suicidal thoughts, and destructive energy and behavior. That was my purpose for the time that it was happening. It sucked. It sucked significantly in ways no one else can really understand, but some can empathize with and relate to. Asking why that was purposeful for me is not useful. I know that people have been through worse than me, and some not anything traumatic at all. That doesn’t mean anything about them or me. It just means that for me to fulfil my purpose, I had to learn a bunch of stuff that can only be learned by having the family that I had, having the life experiences that I had, and all of that made me who I am, which is who I am supposed to be, and is my purpose in life. Nothing I can do can take away the meaning of anything in my past or whatever my future holds. It is what it is supposed to be. I am comforted to know that I cannot mess it up. I forget that often and need to remind myself of this. Whether my journey thus far has been pleasant or painful, or a little bit of both, it is exactly as it was supposed to be so that I became this person right here right now, and this person is who I am meant to be, because I have always been me.
What that also means is that whatever anyone else is doing, being, becoming, going through, or enduring, etc., it is not mine to judge or determine its meaning or worthiness to exist. It is not my business if someone is here to be an asshole, for example. It is theirs. If they don’t want to be an asshole, they might go about learning how not to be one, and then become something else. If they do that, that is what they were supposed to do. If they never realize they are an asshole, and simply live their life as one, that is also not for me to change or try to stop it. It most definitely means I will avoid them and try not to allow their energy to harm me. If it does, well, apparently that was something I was supposed to experience. You know, when I have had interactions with people who are harmful in nature, narcissistic, toxic, or abusive in some way, I did come through those experiences a better person. I learned a great deal about what I am made of, and who I am supposed to be. While that might have turned out to be, nowhere near that person, I needed to be near them to know that I should not be near them. Right? They may not have learned anything by being near me. I realized that not everyone is here to learn. Some are here to give others the opportunity to learn. I used to shake my head at people being awful and destructing wondering why they don’t learn from their mistakes and grow as people? Why do they seem to just keep being awful, even when they are given the opportunity to learn and change? I think it is because not everyone is here to learn.
I am learning that no matter what is happening to me, for me, around me or within me, it is all part of who I am meant to be. If I am sad, it is what I am supposed to be at this moment. If I am joyful, it is what I am supposed to be at this moment. If I am feeling like nothing matters, and we are all going to die horribly at some near point in the future because the planet is burning up, then that is exactly what I am supposed to be feeling. I don’t need to work on changing it or fixing it or feeling something different. I can just feel what I feel and know it is what is supposed to be.
I can’t know that my grieving for people I never met isn’t meaningful to the energy of the planet, or to the person for whom I grieve. If I am doing it, it is very likely important for me to do for the planet and the people for whom I do it. I can’t know that I should be happy or sad, or excited or calm, or that I should be or do anything that I am not currently being or doing. Maybe part of my purpose is to feel certain feelings because the energy of those feelings matters to the energy of the planet, and I am drawn to certain things, movies, activities, people or practices in order to add whatever those energies are to the world. I can’t know if that is true or not true, or if any of it matters or not. I can only know that I am me, just me. I have always been this person, no matter what anyone else, or even myself, has done to try to make me be something else. I always am me. I have become so much better at being me and not trying to be someone else. Even when I was trying really hard to be another person, I was always still just this one. Being me is my destiny, my purpose, my meaning in life. I know that it is what I am supposed to be, and that means that no matter what, it is enough to be. I don’t have to worry about what I am not doing or not being. If I am supposed to be or do it, I will. I know this for myself for sure because, no matter what happened or happens to me, it always comes back to I am myself, and only I can be me, which means it must matter that I am here being me. And, that is enough to be.
Namaste –