15 Questions to Discover Your Life Purpose

from www.thinksimplenow.com "ThinkSimpleNow : Creativity, Clarity and Happiness"

Here is my challenge.... read each of these and think honestly on them. I want you to (a)list them for yourself and (b) email me and let me know if doing this revealed anything to you that you plan to act on. You don't have to tell me what it is .... just if it prompted action or deep thought...

(my edit after initial post is to highlight the ones that really provoked introspection in me)

1. What makes you smile? (Activities, people, events, hobbies, projects, etc.)

2. What are your favorite things to do in the past? What about now?

3. What activities make you lose track of time?

4. What makes you feel great about yourself?

5. Who inspires you most? (Anyone you know or do not know. Family, friends, authors, artists, leaders, etc.) Which qualities inspire you, in each person?

6. What are you naturally good at? (Skills, abilities, gifts etc.)

7. What do people typically ask you for help in?

8. If you had to teach something, what would you teach?

9. What would you regret not fully doing, being or having in your life?

10. You are now 90 years old, sitting on a rocking chair outside your porch; you can feel the spring breeze gently brushing against your face. You are blissful and happy, and are pleased with the wonderful life you’ve been blessed with. Looking back at your life and all that you’ve achieved and acquired, all the relationships you’ve developed; what matters to you most? List them out

11. What are your deepest values? (make a list of adjectives/verbs)

12. What were some challenges, difficulties and hardships you’ve overcome or are in the process of overcoming? How did you do it?

13. What causes do you strongly believe in? Connect with?

14. If you could get a message across to a large group of people. Who would those people be? What would your message be?

15. Given your talents, passions and values. How could you use these resources to serve, to help, to contribute? ( to people, beings, causes, organization, environment, planet, etc.

Advice from a river

.... Go with the flow.... I am really trying. Really. Trying. To not plan, foresee, worry and look ahead. I live in today really well, but worrying about tomorrow is something I am working on!

...Immerse yourself in nature... I do. Everyday. I notice the dew on the ladies mantle, the exquisite smell from my rosebush, the trilling of the birds when I walk the dog, the beauty of the clouds. I cannot imagine the emptiness of not noticing what is around me. How can you not marvel at an enormous white oak tree, knowing how slow it is to grow? Not wonder who perhaps it was that planted and watched that tree grow over the last 100 years? Not be amazed at the changing of the seasons, the power of a storm.... I wonder if more people might find happiness if they spent less time pursuing the material and more time absorbing the world around them.

...Slow down and Meander. Go around the obstacles... Oh I try. And try. Slowing down is hard when you have a multitude of thoughts running rampant through your head. And going around obstacles is hard when you are like me, I just want to hit them head on and deal with them so I can move forward. Perhaps I need to take this advice and accept the obstacles as just being there, and move around them gracefully, not hit them head on and make waves.......

...Be thoughtful of those downstream... If only everyone thought of this. What we do affects others. The choices we make have consequences. The earth is fragile and what we do here affects people elsewhere. You could parlay this is so many ways! The $5 t-shirt costs so much more if you look at the financial, social and environmental flow. The choices we make as parents affect our children through their life. Yet, the advice is to be thoughtful-- not perfect. If all of us were more thoughtful of our downstream effects would our consciousness have big results?

...Stay Current... Turn on the CBC people! Read a little. Wish more did.

...The beauty is in the journey... And it is. Unfortunately the obstacles cloud the beauty. The constant push to faster and away from the 'meander' speed makes it hard to be reflective. And sometimes I think it is age that gives us the perspective needed to realize the beauty of the lesson that is life.

I do believe there is a plan for me and my life. A greater purpose. A challenge and set of lessons uniquely mine. But with all the challenges, I kind of want a MAP! But, if I can follow these guidelines from a river, perhaps my need for a map will relax.... I can dream.... Thanks for wearing the shirt Dad!

The Sensation of Music

"After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
Aldous Huxley

I feel the truth of this statement as I ponder on the role music has taken in my life. Though I have never been a great musician, and never will be (!) I often have memories tied to music. When I cannot express an emotion, sometimes it is a piece of music that brings the emotion bubbling to the surface. I cannot help but be overcome with emotion when I hear Enya, as I can almost re-channel the pain of losing my mother. The music was a sound track to that part of my life. When I hear Cat Stevens I can re-visit the youthful joys experienced at Camp and the sadness felt on the last night when we watched the slideshow together with cabin mates. And amazingly, years later when working as a 27yr old at camp and watching a slide show set to "O very young" the emotional wash was powerful. I cannot communicate those feelings, yet the music can evoke them and is intense. When you share these moments and music with someone it is like your souls touch for a moment (my brother can probably vouch for this). I don't think anyone says it better than this...

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. ... " Alfred Einstein

I HEAR YOU ALFRED!!! My life has a soundtrack. Past relationships a song. Joys their own score and sorrow their own tone. I often wonder if everyone experiences this. Can you imagine if we could plug into each person's soundtrack? Would it shock us, or reveal to us the truest sense of them? Would it give us perspective on where they were at a certain time in life?

One last quote....

“Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness....

What is Happiness? If you wikipedia it you get Happiness is a state of mind or feeling such as contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy.^[1] A variety of philosophical, religious, psychological and biological approaches have been taken to defining happiness and identifying its sources.

So is it something to be defined, and sought? Is it momentary or capable of being a constant? Where do you find it? Hmmm. Lately I have been wondering this very thing. My take is that happiness exists within every person, and is achievable at almost every moment. Unfortunately, we are so bound and busy that we miss it. Some people are so afraid to look inside themselves for it that they struggle constantly seeking that external source. Can the external forces make you happy? My thought is that no, they in and of themselves cannot. Their existence does not generate happiness, but sometimes can add a nice veneer. Can other people make you happy? For a moment, or a time.... but happiness lies in your own centred self. Are you self aware, willing to risk, willing to fail, willing to try and take responsibility for your own emotional wellbeing.....

Do we prescribe to the Utilitarian view of the "greatest happiness principle"? Do what you will providing it is not harming others? Can we side with Bentham where all forms of happiness are equal? Or with Mill who felt that happiness in the non-physical realms was of greater importance. And that happiness itself should not be seen as equal with contentment. He said "[i]t is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question."

A song from my childhood "Happiness runs in a circular motion, thought is like a little boat upon the sea. Everyone is a part of everything anyway, you can have it all if you let yourself be.... Happiness runs Happiness runs.... Happiness runs Happiness runs...."

At the Beach

Warmth
Spilling around my body in silence
Caressing the nooks
Hidden
Lulled by the rolling
waves

Voices call out wordlessly noisy
children's laughter sharp
cutting
through the rhythmic pounding
of water

Beatles or the Rolling Stones...

Listened to lots of music driving to work on Saturday and again on the drive to Marineland. I love the new Metric song where Emily Haines asks "Who'd you rather be, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones"... Really. Who would we rather be. The good guys with world notoriety or the bad boys with world notoriety. Would we still want to be trying to 'rock' in our golden years or have the class to appreciate where we were and not desperately grasp at the past (Sorry Mick!). Aesthetic purists or commercial success.... rocknrollas....It is a question that begs to be answered....

Why Rolling Stones:
.... the wild fun.
.... the sex (you know they were crazy)
.... the music that kicked ass and rocked

Why Beatles:
.... they were good boys you could take home
.... they were responsible for a whole change in music
.... everyone would know your songs and lyrics
.... they aged well and relatively gracefully (Sir's all around)

So it would seem that the Beatles are tipping the scale but if you had to choose knowing what you know now would you? Not me. I have lived a pretty safe life, give me the sex/drugs/rock&roll baby.... we only live once. Who'd you rather be... someone who bows out gracefully or keeps kicking to the end...