Find Your Purpose

Do you understand your purpose? Not the word “purpose” but your purpose.

It is only through understanding your own purpose you will be able to know and fulfill your potential.

It’s found deep inside of you, in that space you have too often neglected. Reaching it, like any worthy endeavor, takes effort.

How do you understand such a thing so intuitive, yet as complex as your purpose? There is no easy answer.

Your purpose cannot be fully explained in words, pictures, music or anywhere else. Art, work, play, relationships — these all give you an idea of why each person exists but also fails to explain purpose.

Viktor Frankl was a prisoner in WWII Nazi concentration camps. He found the connection to his purpose by viewing the universe as asking him a question: Why are you alive? In Man’s Search for Meaning, describing how he and others survived the camps, he wrote:

“…it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly.”

James Allen, author of As a Man Thinketh, connected to his purpose through meditation and controlling his thoughts. He wrote, “Spiritual achievements are the consummation of holy aspirations.”

Christ retreated into the desert where he prayed, fasted, and battled the temptations of Satan to connect with his purpose. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson found it through education, and Marcus Aurelius through his family and closest friends.

Each of the examples above used a different path to uncover their purpose.

What should you do? How should you find your route?

The truth is that there is no universal path that leads everyone to their purpose.

You are an individual. As such, you have a unique purpose, and your connection to it — your path — will be just as unique.

Even though your path is unique, there are common ways to find our individual paths. Here are a few “walking sticks” to help you do so:

• Spend ten quiet minutes everyday in prayer, meditation, scripture study, or reading a book you’ve always felt you should but never have. Do this faithfully for a month and it will change your life.

• Spend six hours once a month in nature. You can go hiking, fishing, or simply sit on a rock. Just remember to leave your cell phone and iPod at home.

• Discover a poet you enjoy and study everything from him or her that you can get your hands on.

• Consciuosly attempt to inspire others in something worthwhile.

You need to disconnect from distractions in order to connect with your purpose. Take the time, right now, to choose one of the actions from the list above and schedule it into your life. Begin to find out the profound wonders your purpose has to offer.

Who you really are, the perfect representation of you, the eternal crusader for virtue, justice and good is what you need to discover.

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Eric S. Dowd is earning his education with the help of the Distance Studies program at George Wythe University.

He is committed to peace and prosperity achieved through personal beliefs and actions which lead to liberty with respect for the rights of others, responsibility, stewardship of property, liber education, providence with an understanding of mission, and public virtue.

Eric resides with his amazing wife and two amusing dogs in northwest Louisiana.