Having suffered heart failure at an relatively early age in life helped me to let go of my endless search for purpose. Because there was no guarantee of a tomorrow, all long-term planning was off. I started writing poems with a picture I took from each day and sharing it with others. There was no long-term planning, no agenda to manipulate, no ego to stoke. It became crystal clear that my mission on Planet Earth was to love and be loved with the gifts I could offer.
So far, I have been given 4835 days from which to love and be loved from my heart event. What a gift each day has been so far. I didn’t have to go back to school for this (unless you count life as a school). I just started loving, starting with myself. Boy, did I need some self-care and some love in order to heal my heart.
With the advent of social media it made it easy then for me to send daily love notes from my home to people. Some of those people I knew well, some just a little. It was all I could do from my home at the time, but it felt good to focus on my real purpose and lose my label. Well actually, at first, it felt pretty darn crappy, because I was missing my identity as I knew it. But over time I no longer had to be a consultant, an Outward Bound instructor, or a climber. I could just be me fulfilling my simple purpose.
Sometimes, my simple purpose did not feel so simple. It’s hard to figure out how to love when people are hurting, or being monsters, or choosing to diminish others, but with practice I began to get better at it as time went by and my heart healed.
For me, I did not have go find myself anymore, because myself was right here doing what it was born to do. May you find your purpose too.
*************************************************************
MY PURPOSE
My purpose is to love
with the gifts I can
offer and receive
the love of others
with the gifts they
offer too.