Purpose

First an image:  Although seated near a window the elderly person is not really looking out.  They are not sleeping but are not seemingly engaged in any way.  The eyes stare into space without interest. Someone approaches, touches the arm, speaks, but receives no response.
















What is your PURPOSE?

It may not be at the top of your list of queries today but it could be.  And I hope that I can give you some help to put it there if it isn't yet.

My "word for the year" is  PURPOSE so is naturally at the top of my list every day- for reflection, study and sharing.  At 58 years old, it seemed a little late in life to grab hold of this topic.  What I have learned so far is that I am not alone in coming late to this table.  Some of the folks I speak with are saying that it is just now that they are on the verge of the late season of life---retiring from work, nest empty, facing senior challenges of many kinds---that they are realizing that PURPOSE is lacking.

And maybe, just maybe, this is the ideal time of life for this unfolding to occur in us.  Our duty-driven life is behind us.

So backing up a bit.  By purpose I do not mean just "what is my responsibility" or "how does society define me based on what I do".   This is not the kitchen table laundry list of functions I perform. This is not "who am I"?  This is something greater...higher...this is about the soul's purpose, here on Earth.  And yes, every life has meaning, every path is the "right" path, and when the student is ready the teacher will appear...

I subscribe to a conviction that our highest purpose in living life is ascension.  As we grow up our self-definition grows.  And so we may have a lifetime of PURPOSES, each leading us to a higher version of self and each contributing to a better "here on Earth" and beyond.  Even if you do not know what your higher purpose is right this minute it knows you and is working in your life at some level right now.

Think about your current life circumstances.  What do you do well.  What do you speak about most fluently?  What is your passion?  If you could share something of yourself to the benefit of others what would it be? In there somewhere is your life purpose!  The reason you were sent to Earth and the reason you are where you are NOW.

You are never too old to act on this my senior friends! You have your lifetime of experiences to call on to support your expert voice! You have knowledge, connections, resources, information, ideas, gifts waiting to be put into service!  What are you waiting to share this thing for?  Don't worry that the audience isn't sitting at your feet waiting with held breath for your teaching.  There is someone you can reach if you just stretch yourself a little.  Write a letter.  Write a book.  Support a cause.   Create a service group.  Take any little action that inspires you.  Take some big action that you never dreamed you would dare to.

And then do you know what's going to happen?  You are going to feel alive!  On fire!  Excited by the moments you can spend pursuing and sharing what is special about you and your experience!  Lit up by the new experiences that come your way and unfold in you as further life purposes emerge!

That is how we live it upward.  That is Living Live.

Before we no longer can.

Going back to that image at the top of this page.  There is nothing wrong with going inward at the final phase of life.  It looks sad to us sometimes but what would really be sad is to reach that place without opening our arms and leaping in to life every chance we get.