Journey to Joy: Being Your Purpose

This past week has been filled with vivid conversations and lots of flowers. I received flowers from my daughter for watching their puppy while they moved, flowers from a friend for whom I had done a small favour, and I visited a tulip farm all in the same week! Oh what joy to have so many flowers you run out of vases. I am so grateful.

And grateful also to a young person who trusted me enough to reveal they were struggling with a fork-in-the-road decision. Her main question to me was wondering about how people understood what their purpose in life was.

My take on purpose is that it’s somewhere inside that dream you’re dreaming. And sometimes we don’t know and may never definitively know our purpose, but we are living it, everyday.

Just like flowers, they grow, they are, they be. Meadows fill with wild flowers at this time of year, and in the big scheme of things they unknowingly fulfill their purpose. They are a part of the intricate colossal ecosystem that sustains life on our planet. We all play our part.

Purpose doesn’t have to be grandiose. It can be quiet like a whisper. You never know who’s life you’ve touched, who you may have helped, who you may have inspired, or how your actions have rippled out to those you’ve never even met. So I believe you must keep being your purpose rather than seeking it.

Emily Dickinson wrote these fitting words in her poem, If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking

If I can stop one heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one life the aching
Or cool one pain
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again
I shall not live in vain

The idea I believe is not to look for approbation, but to gently move along in your own stream as part of the river, tumble over rocks, shift the silt and feed the roots of all that reach you, before you yourself reach the ocean. There’s a great joy in letting go of the self and in just being your purpose.

After our conversation I guided the young woman to a YouTube video I made some time ago on the same subject. I don’t believe I’d ever shared it here on this blog, (who can remember) so will leave it for you if you wish to watch.

What are your thoughts on purpose? Did you find yours? Did it find you? Or are you being your purpose?

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This is the Journey to Joy series. Write a post, like a gratitude journal about something you’ve experienced on this journey to joy. Ping back or link your post in comments by next Friday, and I’ll share it in my next Journey to Joy post. Let’s share the joy in this journey!