02 Jan The Purpose of Having Purpose
Did you ever watch a movie and when the credits roll, you think to yourself, I will never get that 1h 47min back and they were a complete waste? Or have you done the same thing and looked back to exclaim that the time you spent ingesting the visuals on the screen has changed irrevocably how you see yourself and your position in the world? If you knew that you could spend 1h 47min watching, listening or experiencing something and it would have an exponential impact upon your life, would you hesitate in doing it?
Today I started the first day of doing intentional, focused, purposeful work towards what I know to be part of my design. Its taken a good few years and a few forays into various avenues to determine what my design is and by ruling out what my DNA is not, I’ve managed to find what my DNA really is.
So, I’m standing on the first page of this chapter without paralyzing fear of what the next step will be because I have a purpose. A purpose to leave a mark on the world around me, and the people in that world. I am built to be more than mediocre and to craft an awakening in others whose minds have been shut down to the idea of dreaming because they haven’t the means.
I once spent a day with a waste picker, a man who earns a daily wage from sifting through the garbage of others to extract whatever waste material he can use to sell for recycling purposes. He took me on his route, step by step, through where he slept and what he ate and at the end of the day, I posed the question to him, “What are your plans for tomorrow? Where do you see yourself in a week, or a month, or a year?” and his response was one I will not let myself forget, “Dreams and plans are the privileges of the wealthy. I can only hope for a warm cup of coffee on the bench in the morning sunlight with the ducks that walk past and maybe a friend or two to talk to. That is the extent to which my means allow me to dream.”
Dreams and the ability to create them without the confines of financial means should not be the privilege of the entitled in society and it is my purpose to build a channel by which everyone, no matter the station, is able to visualize what can be achieved and what they can create at the end of their fingertips.
Our economy is crippling under the weight of the increasing burden of unemployment, and I have been blessed with the purpose of forging the means to solve for that. My purpose is to educate those whose dreams are constrained by their internal and external narrative of poverty. To educate the world that there is an alternative to competing for the scraps of the vacancies but rather to harness the potential that lies within and shape a future that is packed with plans and dreams.
The purpose of purpose? To intentionally give direction to every action, conversation, and thought towards that which you are built for and to measure feedback against your DNA. Creating a filter that will allow for absorbing or discarding the noise that the world creates. A purpose will keep your head up when there is a time to lead, and your head down when the path is uphill. A purpose will amplify what your inherent blueprint has mapped as your place in this world.