My Purpose in Life (Part 1)

(Amma, the hugging saint)

Have you ever wondered about your life purpose? I have. I wonder about it more when the conversation about purpose leaks out of the self help community. Like last spring, I was listening to the New Man Podcast, and some guy, I don’t remember who anymore, was talking about why it’s important to find your life’s purpose. At the time, I was struck hard by it and I took some time to this about this.

It can be difficult trying to figure this out. I’ve heard it could be what I'm talented in. It could be an area of skill? I’ve also heard it could be what makes me happy. After pondering these avenues, I still didn't know. Have you figured your purpose out yet with these clues?

After some reflection, I realized I’ve known my purpose for years. I just didn't know it yet. Finally it dawned on me my purpose in life is to be the most loving person I can be, first to God and than to others. Its who I am, or at least who I’m working to be. I made that decision in 1996 and I’ve dedicated myself to it ever since.

Yet to make it happen, I’ve continued to struggle with this one question: What is love and how can I know it? When I talk of love, I don’t mean romantic love or falling in love with someone. Instead I'm getting after the compassion at the heart of sustainable human interaction. That’s were my definition stops because I’m not sure if we can define love. Eastern philosopher and mystic, Alan Watts, once wrote in his book, Tao: The Watercouse Way,  the problem of trying to explain the Tao. Since it’s alive, explaining it is like trying to swallow the whole ocean into your mouth and recreate it by pushing it back through a straw. It cannot be done. Yet when we try to explain something like the Tao using our words that run left to right in one direction, we are doing the same thing. (I paraphrased, of course.) 

So it is with love. Words fail love since love is alive with movement and will and words are dead and after the fact. Therefore with words we can only hint at what love was. Love happens in the moment. And when love is truly happening,  the other person is the only thing that matters: the joy of serving another person envelopes the moment. All else is of no consequence.

The other part of the problem in figuring out love is what happens to us with love. All of us may be avoiding an honest discussion on love because we and everything and everyone around us is exposed in love's presence. Love hides nothing. Shame and ambitions melt like ice. We then must do the hard work of figuring out how to view ourselves since we've only known who we are through insecurities. The question becomes, who’s right, me or love? I still struggle with my identity in the shadows of love. My self-narrative is in constant rewrite.

Next week I will go into how this journey came about, how this purpose came into being. But until then, I would like to hear from you. Can you define love? Is it something you intentionally do? Or does it just happen? And does love have a chance of redefining you?

(For further reading on love in action: Jean Vanier's Book Becoming Human. It's helped me cultivate an outlook of compassion.)