Life often has many unexpected twists and turns that you did not see coming: a hurricane, sudden loss of your job, your partner has an affair, a relative or friend dies, or you suffer some kind of injury or major disappointment.
There are no guarantees and when you completely rely on life’s supposed guarantees you will be forever disappointed.
The flip of the coin is that life is also full of many wonderful surprises: someone is unexpectedly kind to you, you become a parent, a venture becomes successful, you have a wonderful time with good friends, or your hard work suddenly pays off.
So how do you weather the perpetual ups and down of life?
Life is not all about what happens to you but about what you do with the opportunities and disappointments you encounter.
Life is unquestionably a rollercoaster for all of us, but many don’t have a rudder and good ballast that steers them through. So, they go through life almost aimlessly like a lost ship at sea, bumping into disasters.
What is your life’s purpose?
It’s important to have a purpose. If you go through life simply for what you can accumulate, all the parties you can attend or all the accolades you can win, it’s all about you.
You may be surrounded by many people or objects but you end up alone within yourself.
In the end, in several hundred years’ time, few people will ever know you existed and you’ll simply be a historical statistic.
And if that’s all you take to immortality it’s all a bit hollow and not everlasting.
Just imagine for one moment if you live your life with purpose.
- Do you want to create the best family ever?
- Is there a particular charity you help run or for which you volunteer?
- Are you active in human or animal rights?
- Are you teaching your children to lobby to help the environment?
- Are you doing everything you can to help your neighbours?
- Are you living a life you can be really proud of?
Sure, we all mess up big time from time to time because we are human. Particularly when we are young, we make some terrible mistakes when we are learning how to manoeuvre life and the world.
Learning from those mistakes, however, can help you become the very best version of ourselves.
What is your purpose in life?
Although this may sound existential it’s actually very practical because when you’re on your death bed and reviewing your life, you don’t want to have regrets.
Your review of your life determines whether you were happy and satisfied with what you became and what you did. If all you ever did was live aimlessly, you never really got to where you wanted to go.
If you die at any point when you are living your purpose, you die fulfilled because it’s the way you travelled your life journey, not just what you achieved, that helps you live happy.
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