Letting My Purpose Find Me

In my own clock, I spoke metaphorically about learning to listen to my own Self, learning to discern what I want from what I believe I am supposed to want. As this process continues, I am becoming more aware of the distinction between the two. In exploring this distinction, an interesting question arises: what is it that I actually want?

I am realizing that my desire to answer to this question is animated by a force that is much like gravity: subtle, yet unyielding. Like gravity, it manifests whether I want it or not. Like gravity, I can only pretend to ignore it. I’ve come to see it as the fundamental need for Fulfillment, the need to do something more than just surviving and living out my life.

I’ve also begun recognizing that this need for Fulfillment, this force is directed. There’s a definite sense of “more-of-that” and “less-of-that” when I make my own choices. And when there’s a direction, there’s a destination. There is a Purpose, my own sense of meaning that is clearly there, present within me.

I am neither used to looking for it, nor it is easy to see. With other forces pulling in their own directions, it’s easy for me to get distracted and disoriented. Did I act in a certain way because I was stumbling toward my Purpose, or was because I was trying to protect myself in some way?

I’d found that the direction is most easily seen when I sit down at the end of the day and spend a few minutes reflecting on what is happening within me, and how the day felt as a whole. This does not need to take a long time: I usually just set my fingertips to the keyboard and let them go. More often than not, exhaustion and angst of the day gives way to curiosity and wonder. That’s when I start seeing a bit more. I start tracing outlines of what is meaningful to me, what’s important, what’s purposeful.

It’s almost like my Purpose is always there. I am just blocking with the whirlwind of the mundane. In the moments when I can stop and let go, I am able to let it find me.