Finding my purpose

“If you survive you can tell the story, you can go on. If you don’t survive, that’s it”.
Maria Belon. Tsunami 2004 survivor

What a tragedy to climb the ladder of life, one step at a time, to fulfill your supposed role in life, to do your tasks to the very best of your abilities, to finally reach the top, only to discover the ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall (1).

I do not think my “ladder” has been leaning against the wrong wall all my life, and I certainly would not have changed my role in life of being a wife and mother for anything and doing that to the best of my ability.

Here is the bit that I got wrong – I had believed my purpose in life was the “being a wife and mother” bit. It wasn’t and it isn’t. It was the “doing that to the best of my ability” bit. That is my purpose.

More than that, my purpose in life I believe is:

“To Live To My Highest Self and Inspire Others To Do The Same”.

Being a wife and mother and doing that to the very best of my abilities, inspiring my children to do their best, was not my sole purpose but rather has been one of the ways I have been able to fulfill my purpose. Over the years, there have been other ways.

What about today?

“To Live to my highest self …..’

Throughout all the wading through the mud of this transition in my life of the divorce process and its subsequent grief, one of the biggest losses I have felt has been my loss of purpose. Living to my highest self, doing my best. How can I be and do my best when so often over the last two years I have been down on the floor?

That is the one fact I have now come to accept. Some days, when I have been down on the floor, standing up is the very best I have been able to do. Surviving was my highest self.

On other days, my very best has included a range of meaningful activities.

And on some days, I have been able to lend a helping hand to those in need.

What I have come to realise is that ‘living to my highest self’ does not mean ‘the highest and very best that I have ever been capable of‘, but rather ‘the very best that I can be and do – today – in whatever the circumstance is‘.

“……. To Inspire Others To Do The Same”.

This is not meant to mean to inspire others to do what I would have done in their situation. It means to inspire others to do the best they can do with their own talents and strengths, in the circumstances they find themselves in.

Have I done this in the past two years?

After I was hit by the hurricane ending of my marriage, I survived. I survived the first minutes of agony and the first hour. I survived the first day, the second day, and the whole of the first week. I survived the first month, then several months. I revived. I got my life back. I saw myself as an individual rather than half a couple. I saw myself as a person with my own needs and desires; and a right to my own values, opinions and beliefs. I went on a fascinating journey of the discovery of me. I took back control of my life. I am driving my own path forward. I will chose my own destiny. I will create meaning in my life. From a tiny seed sown in the depths of a winter of despair, my transformed self is beginning to blossom.

That is my message. By example. I survived. I revived. I arrived. If I can, you can.

A new goal

To apply my experiences of my past to my present circumstances with positiveness towards an optimal future; and to spread the wisdom I have gained through my abilities as a communicator.

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(1) Analogy from ‘The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People’; Stephen Covey. Habit # 2 ‘Begin With The End In Mind’.

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