What's Your Purpose?

I've decided the way to be happy is to be purpose driven.  A few years ago, there was a popular book out called, "The Purpose Driven Life," by Rick Warren.  It was a Christian book, and I never read it, so I can't pretend to know what it was about.  But for some reason, since I heard about this book I've never read, I have thought about this: how do you live a purpose driven life?

What's your purpose for being on the earth?  Do you go through your days feeling lost and alone? Or are you one of these people who is always surrounded by others, knows exactly what to do, and is driven towards success?  For a few years, I really struggled with my purpose.  I didn't have many friends when I moved back to Alabama. I spent a few years sitting in front of the television, playing with babies, and eating my emotions away.  I would read stories of people who were wildly successful writers, and I would think, "How'd they do that? I could never do that."  But the truth is: anyone can become successful by actively setting goals and achieving them.

I finally figured out my purpose, and it is embedded in a lot of other aspects of my life, but my purpose for being alive is to write.  I'm driven to do it, and as such, it's the one thing I need to throw myself into wholeheartedly.  I write for myself. Sure, I'd love to become a famous author, and I'm trying.  TRYING. This is the thing I was missing before. I was all "woe is me, I will never become a writer." Well of course, I wasn't going to be a successful writer if I wasn't writing at all.  If I never even tried to promote my book.  If I sat on the couch, watching endless hours of television and not writing a word on my laptop, then I'd never get anywhere. If I couldn't bother to edit my book, because it was just to hard. If I didn't realize that achieving your dreams takes a lot of hard work, and a long time to accomplish.  These are all excuses we tell ourselves out of FEAR.  Fear of living the life we're supposed to live, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of love: you name it.

The way to find your purpose is to find out what you love to do, and then DO IT.  Go for it, with all your heart!  Write every day if you're a writer.  Stop being afraid to do what you really want to do or what you really need to do for yourself. Stop blaming other people for your lack of success. Start looking at yourself and see how you can make your drams come true.  You miss out on a lot by being afraid: on life, on love, on finding your purpose.  Don't let that happen to you.

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Purpose Driven Happiness

Today I was thinking about happiness, or the lack thereof.  For most of our lives we’re told by our parents, our teachers, our peers, “I just want you to be happy.”  But what is real happiness?  Real happiness is a positive state of mind and the ability to gleam the good from just about any situation.

It is true that people who smile more tend to be happier than those who don’t.  You can, in essence, make yourself happy by pretending to be happy.  You know, like the old adage: fake it until you make it.  That’s pretty true about happiness…most of the time.   

But sometimes it can be hard to find happiness.  You have to want to be happy in order to be happy.  You have to strive for happiness.  So many people I know say having faith in God provides them happiness.  They put their trust in a superior being, and it lifts the unhappiness from them.  That doesn’t work for me.    

For me happiness is defined by a sum of its parts.  Way back last year or two years ago, when I started this blog I was unhappy.  I look back at that time, and I think it’s because I had no direction.  I was content in feeling “blah,” only I wasn’t really content.  I was seriously unhappy.  I had no purpose—no direction.  I was sitting around feeling intensely sad, and I wasn’t doing anything about it.  Wallowing in your sorrow will only make you more sorrowful.  It won’t help dig you out of it.

I decided, with the help of friends and family, to find a purpose.  I think a lot of people find that purpose in God, but not me.  I prefer to find a purpose in something solid, some goal I can attain, something I can strive to achieve.  For me, I found that purpose in writing.  I started writing every day.  I started making changes in my lifestyle: losing weight, exercising, writing.  All of these things, once I realized how achievable they were, seemed to give me a purpose for my existence. 

I started realizing the more I was happy, the more other people in my life were happy.  The more happiness I felt, the better off the kids.  Now, looking back, I can’t believe I spent so many years on the couch wallowing in my own misery.  I wasted a lot of time doing nothing, when I could have been doing something.  But, you know, hindsight is like foresight without a future.  There’s no point in looking back at things that cannot be changed.  There’s no point in wishing something could be that cannot be.  There’s only a point in setting a goal for the future, driving yourself with a purpose, and achieving that purpose so you can find happiness and fulfillment.  At least, that’s what works for me.