What’s your purpose on the planet? Here’s how to figure it out.
Each day we are gifted 86,400 seconds of unique possibility to grow, learn, serve and contribute.
To think, to share, to make someone else’s life better because we are in it.
My currency of love is doing, and it is with a heavy heart at the close of my day to know that I didn’t do anything today to make myself a better person than I was yesterday. Or even more, to know I didn’t do anything with my time to try and make another person’s life better. Ouch. It hurts my soul and makes me feel guilty and ashamed of myself, and that’s a real lost opportunity.
These are hidden clues that part of my dharma—or reason for being in the world—is to help others on their paths, which can be really valuable.
Each time we notice what makes us suffer, what makes us feel sick, fed up, overwhelmed — it’s all clues that there is something to notice, something to pay attention to, so we don’t have to sit in our negative energy and make ourselves wrong.
We can use these feelings and emotions to help find our purpose and path, especially if we feel lost and like we don’t know exactly what it is.
Instead, we can ask ourselves:
What did I learn today?
What did I do to make myself a better person than I was yesterday?
What could I learn from this situation?
What could I do to help/serve someone else?
What could I learn about this to uncover my reason for being; my purpose, my path, my Dharma?
I’ve invested my lifetime in learning, and earlier this month, I realised if something were to happen to me, if I was to die, a lot of the
The knowledge I’ve gathered
Lessons I’ve learned
Experiences I’ve had
Emotions I’ve felt
People I’ve met
Countries I’ve travelled to
Seminars I’ve attended,
The presentations & pitches I’ve heard
Tutorials I’ve taken
Skills I’ve mastered
Lectures I’ve attended, and
Books I’ve read—
All of the lifetime of rich wealth in knowledge, lessons and information would die with me.
And what would it be all for? Nothing. I didn’t invest my lifetime to learning not to share it with people, not to help people navigate through their lives and make them better, more useful, to be more, do more, have more, share more, give and achieve more.
There is no point learning anything, going through the tough stuff, the life-shattering things, the trials and tribulations unless we get to take it and help and serve others. We must contribute.
Our trauma and tough stuff develops our resilience muscles.
If we can use it to help even one person, then it was worth going through.
