Regardless of your race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, economic status, political party, religion, education, birthplace, or any other external identifier or label others might slap on you or that you claim for yourself, there’s no denying that you have a heart. The benefit of a beating heart is life itself.
Your heart is the spiritual home of your purpose. It is where the “real you” lives. That person with hopes and dreams, as well as fears and phobias. Your heart may be so well guarded that even you’ve forgotten how to get “home” — how to know yourself and what matters most to living a satisfying and successful life.
All your well-being (or your weal as in wealth) originates in your heart. The effects, however, are experienced in every facet of your life as well as the lives of those in your spheres of influence. As a result, knowing your heart is to know yourself well enough to discern what’s working for you or isn’t.
Purpose matters the most. When life seems meaningless or hopeless, there appears to be no purpose. Your proverbial “heart isn’t in it,” or “you’ve lost heart.” Fortunately, purposelessness is merely a condition — not a reality. If your heart stopped beating, you would die. But if you’re reading this, then there’s about 100% probability your heart still pumps.
Similarly, your purpose — along with inherent dignity and worth — is permanent and always with you. From your kernel of purpose comes hope that can sprout meaning, then fulfillment, and ultimately peace. This seed of meaning is planted in a bed of natural laws such as cause and effect, actions have consequences, responsibility for yourself, and the innate desire to contribute to the common good. These principles associated with purpose are immutable and immeasurable nutrients for your soul. The more grounded you are in these, the more confident and bold you will become.
Knowing your purpose is a bypass to your heart-home. It gets around a clogged or closed heart. No need to wade through the muck and mire of your past to create the present and future of your heart’s deepest desire. ONPURPOSE.me opens the back door to your identity so you can smartly align your purpose, vision, and missions within your values. That’s the foundation to leading a fulfilling and content life.
Purpose in Body, Mind, and Spirit
A “person” can be characterized as consisting of Body, Mind, and Spirit. Purpose resides at the intersection of all three spheres and informs them all. Yet, purpose is first a matter of the Spirit — your spirit.
Unfortunately, people are confused about what purpose is and so their lives reflect their frustration. In man’s search for meaning and identity, false idols and graven images too quickly fill the gaping void of our hearts.
The Spirit’s yearning for knowing one’s purpose in life is so intensely needed that the empty calories of imitators can be mindlessly consumed. This opens a passage to the malady of meaninglessness and puts us on the road to hopelessness and despair where the price is paid in Body, Mind, and Spirit.
By Definition Purpose Is Good
Star Wars introduced us to “The Force” with its light and dark sides. Much like a coin with two sides, The Force is one “being” with two natures. The battle of dark and light endlessly wages within each of us until we make peace. We waiver until we choose. The first war we face is within us. All other wars are but circumstance (offered with no intent to minimize their effects).
By definition purpose is good. Escape the homeless gray and turmoil of straddling light and dark. Purpose is the key opening the door to the light side of The Force. Just as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz wore her ruby red shoes to get home, you have the inborn gift of purpose plus the power to choose to walk into the light. What used to seemed complicated and readily put it off is now yours in mere minutes.
When you use ONPURPOSE.me to clarify your purpose in two words, you access the possibility to create a life of purpose and promise. Without it, you’re apt to be adrift in mind, body, and spirit even if you are “successful,” as was “the man” at the opening of The On-Purpose Person.
Purposelessness is to have no perceptible means to the light side. What can be worse than standing at the door and knocking again and again only to have it not opened? It is like being an awkwardly isolated teenager without a friend who eventually “falls in with the wrong crowd.” The dark side satisfies some semblance of belonging and significance even if in the company of other “castoffs.”
Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century mathematician and namesake of Pascal’s Triangle, addressed our soulful void this way: “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”
The book of Ephesians says it this way: “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”
Fear Not: “Discovering My Purpose”
Many years ago a business colleague asked me to speak to a group of ten C-suite executive secretaries at a large corporation. These high-functioning, capable, and impressive women were reading and working through the exercises in The On-Purpose Person: Making Your Life Make Sense.
Walking into the boardroom where they would meet, I sat in the middle of the large conference table surrounded by women who wielded access to the most powerful executives in that company. Knowing they had read the book, I opened by asking one simple question, “Would you please tell me about your experience of becoming an on-purpose person in creation?”
The first woman to speak said, “It scared me to death to actually look at my life in this way.” Around the table all heads nodded in agreement. Each shared their fears of shame, worthlessness, and dashed dreams. Life hadn’t turned out as any of them had planned, really.
Certainly, they didn’t have “bad lives,” they just didn’t feel like they had much of a life. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being an awesome life, they averaged a somewhat lukewarm 6. They had good work and an income, but little meaning and difference-making.
The On-Purpose Person awakened this realization in them … and it hurt. And they were thankful for it because now they did know their purpose. Now they could get on with their lives. They could stop “leading lives of quiet desperation.” Each had a purpose and a plan.
Purpose Matters Most
“What is my purpose in life?” There is no greater question that you can ask of yourself. It isn’t enough to simply know you have a purpose or have a sense of purpose. Most of all, you want to put words to it and tap the power of your purpose as you give it expression in every decision you make and expression of your life. That’s being on-purpose!
These words appeared in the first paragraph of this post, “…there’s no denying you have a heart.” Start your search for meaning at your spiritual home. The standard equipment of your life included the gifts of purpose and meaning. Now what are you going to do with your 2-word purpose? Amaze us, please!
