Tag: Purpose

Scaling the Walls of Our Dreams

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“The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.” – David Viscott

This is a repost of something I published on 5/11/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

I was talking with some friends the other day about the movie Free Solo. One of my friends breezily remarked that Alex Honnold was crazy for climbing El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, a nearly 3,000 foot ascent without ropes, anchors or any other protective gear. Before I watched the movie, I would have agreed. After all, the first time I climbed a rock face, I was only three feet off the ground when my leg start shaking, a condition so common it has a name – sewing machine leg.

But when you watch the movie, you see how impeccably he prepared for the challenge. Alex climbed each section over and over again with protective gear, until every move was automatic and if not easy, than at least anticipated.

For me the crux moment is when the film crew assembles to film his free solo attempt and he starts but then calls it off because he knows it’s not the right day. In that willingness under the pressure of expectation and respect for everyone else’s time and with the knowledge that they won’t be able to try again until the next year, he shows how incredibly brave he is.

For me this isn’t a movie about a climber ascending a famous wall at Yosemite. It’s an allegory for all of us about the call to recognize and commit to our gifts. It is about accepting our paths, the unique reason we are all on the planet, and then walking that path.

It contains both the vision piece – and execution piece, the incredibly hard work that we have to do to hone our gift once we accept it. It shows that purpose and practice go hand in hand.

And it speaks to how vital it is to listen to the quiet Divine voice within us. So that if the day, the conditions or the circumstances aren’t right, we are willing to honor the voice within that says “Don’t do it” no matter how silly it could make us look. We can listen, withdraw and wait for the right day.

When my daughter was 2-years-old and we were watching The Sound of Music, she asked why the characters at the convent were wearing habits and wimples. When I told her they were nuns, she repeated back to me, “They are nuts?”

Yes, sometimes when we follow our calling, we might seem like we are nuts. It is hard to get quiet enough to listen to the small voice within. Even harder to put our gifts on display for the world to see and put in enough practice to bring them to bear in an audacious way.

But when we do scale that wall of gifts and dreams, when we stand on top and celebrate that unity of purpose, preparation and performance, we set the world on fire. As Howard Thurman said so well, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people that come alive.”

I’ve posted a related piece The Archetypes of Story on the Wise & Shine blog. If you have time, hop over there to check it out.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Written In the Stars

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“Don’t worry about the darkness for that is when stars shine the brightest.” – Napoleon Hill

Last weekend we were up on Whidbey Island at a beautiful place on Mutiny Bay. At 3am I woke up as documented in my The Whispers of My Failures post and none of my usual tricks helped me go back to sleep.

So I walked to the window and the sky was so beautiful, clear and filled with stars. It was a breathtaking view of which I never see when I’m in the city (nor do I usually look). Instead of going back to bed, I threw on some warm clothes and got my kids out of bed.

I wrapped them in blankets and helped them slip outside to sit on the break wall and look at the stars. Miss O saw two shooting stars, the Big Dipper and Orion’s belt right away. I pointed out the Milky Way galaxy and the Seven Sisters (Pleiades) and then Mr D asked what the noise was. It was a cruise ship all lit up (see featured photo) and heading south to dock in port in Seattle at sunrise. Then as we turned to go back inside, a second cruise ship steamed by.

I told the story of what I’d done to my mom when she came over for dinner this week, and she said, “You are a good mom. I would have never done that.”

Then she added, “But it’s stuff like that they’ll remember.”

I’m not claiming any parental award for this star gazing outing though. All I did was let my God voice outweigh my practical voice. I listened to that inner whisper that asked, “When will this night come again?”

It took a little work but my kids went back to sleep. As I settled back into bed I felt the full circle realization of the majority of why I try (and sometimes fail) these days – for these beautiful little lives that I’m responsible for. And for them to know beauty – like of the night sky.

Somehow, waking them up at 3am was the perfect cure for aligning me with what I value most. No surprise because when I honor that small God voice inside it usually does reward me with that alignment to what matters most.

As I fell back asleep, I did so with a little piece of the world’s beauty in my heart and proof of my most enduring efforts sleeping next door.

When Not to Write Back

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“Wine had to be grapes first. Diamonds had to be rocks first. Butterflies had to be caterpillars first. Rainbows had to be storms first.” – Matshona Dhilwayo

On Monday night, my hometown football team, the Seahawks won their first season game against the Denver Broncos. It was remarkable because our former star quarterback, Russell Wilson, just traded to the Broncos and because expectations are pretty low for the Seahawks this season. Our new quarterback, Geno Smith, was the backup quarterback for three years waiting on the bench while Russell Wilson got all the limelight.

I didn’t watch the whole game but after I got the kids into bed, I turned on the tv to see the final moments and caught a glimpse of something wonderful. At the end of the game when the Seahawks pulled off a 17-16 victory, Geno Smith said to the interviewer in an ecstatic moment “They wrote me off, I ain’t write back though.”

I don’t think you need to be a Seahawks fan or even a football fan to enjoy that sentiment. The pure belief to persevere when others don’t see your potential. I mean, he’s a pro quarterback in the NFL so clearly he’s a remarkable athlete but in the circles that he runs in, it’s easy to imagine that he wasn’t feeling a lot of respect.

How do we maintain our belief in ourselves when it doesn’t feel like the world is in accord? It seems like we are talking about the very source of our purpose and calling. And we are talking about deep knowing whether we are walking on the right path and sticking there in the tough moments because we have the guts to keep going. It speaks to finding our why, as Simon Sinek says and I wrote about in a post by the same name.

Perhaps the world will never value the contribution that we make in the way we envision it should happen. But time and time again I’ve found that if I stay in accord with that small quiet God-whisper and keep trying, SOMETHING will come of it.

Or as Geno Smith says, listen to our hearts so that we know when NOT to write back.

What’s your metaphor or mantra when you are sticking with something hard?

(Mark, I’m sorry that your beloved Broncos had to lose in order to inspire the content of this post. 🙂 )

(featured photo from Pexels)

The Big Questions

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“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.” – Rainier Maria Rilke

I have a friend who is going through a hard break-up. Sitting with my friend as they process makes me think of all the questions I’ve wanted to know when going through hard times: When will I feel better?How will I survive this? What meaning is going to come from this? What is my purpose here?

Wanting the answer to big questions is the topic of my post for Pointless Overthinking this week: Waiting for the Big Answers.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Wired to Yearn

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“One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art in conducting oneself in lower regions by memory of what one has seen higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.” – Rene Daumal

U2 released the song I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For in 1987 just as I was graduating from high school. The song filled me with a longing that seemed perfectly appropriate for a young woman in the summer before she headed off to college.

In this summer 35 years later, I’ve heard the song probably as many times in close repetition as I did in 1987 because my kids are crazy about the movie Sing 2 in which I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For figures prominently.

And the song hits me just as deeply, filling me with yearning. Which might be chalked up to nostalgia for those carefree days of youth. But it also strikes me that our capacity to yearn is also something that is uniquely human. Our thirst for depth, purpose and God surfaces in some sort of repetition as we traverse our days, and it drives us to look for more or dares us to try to dismiss it.

I have climbed highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
No I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For by U2

The poetry of the first verse reminds me that I have experienced much that my young self never saw coming including climbing to the tops of mountains. And indeed, I started climbing because of that deep yearning inside, a God whisper that I told me I needed to look.

When I first heard the song, I thought I would have it all figured out by the time I was 53 years old. Heck, I thought I would have it all figured out by 23. My young idealism and optimism would never have predicted that yearning can last a lifetime through the highs when I’ve wondered, “Is this all?” and the lows when I’ve groveled, “Please let there be more.”

In the moments when I experience the Oneness of all, the yearning quiets. And then the next moment I stub my toe or spill the milk and the desire to restore that unity returns with vigor. I’ve found much of my purpose in the busy and joyful days full with my two precious children and still want more. I get up early in order to find the stillness in which I can hear. I stop the car at the top of the hill to take a picture because the sky speaks to me. I write in order to keep pulling and finding the thread of awe, wonder and Divinity.

All this leaves me saying to my 18-year-old self, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” but I have figured out that I’m not meant to because the yearning itself has meaning. I have moments of enlightenment and feel peace. I hear echoes of Universal truth and I know it’s real. Now I know it’ll keep opening my eyes to look for Divine beauty all the way til the very end.

(He will lift you higher and higher)
(He’ll pick you up when you fall) I believe
(He’ll be your shelter from the storm)
I believe in a kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For by songwriters: Clayton Adam, Evans David, Mullen Laurence, Hewson Paul David

(featured photo is sunrise on Mt. Adams)

Are you a U2 fan or have you seen the movie Sing 2? Have you found what you are looking for?

Why

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“He who has a why can endure any how.” – Nietzsche

The other day I was driving with Mr. D in the car and he saw a church steeple and asked what it was.

Me: That’s a church steeple.

D: Why?

Me: It’s that’s a traditional part of a that kind of church architecture.

D: Why?

Me: We have churches so that people can celebrate God.

D: Why?

Clearly, Mr. D is squarely in his why phase. To me it feels as if he’s figured out a way to carry on a conversation without having an extensive amount of words. But it’s fitting because I’ve been working on finding my “why.” My why – as in the core motivation and pervasive central theme of what I do.

As author Simon Sinek says in Find Your Why, “Each of us has only one WHY. It’s not a statement of who we aspire to be; it expresses who we are when we are at our natural best.”

There are different schools of thought of how to find your why. Social scientist and Harvard professor, Arthur Brooks (From Strength to Strength) suggests that we finding it by cultivating moments of stillness and meditating on it. Author Simon Sinek (Find Your Why) recommends a structured approach where we tell the formative stories of our youth (because he says our why is formed by our late teens) in order to form a statement that looks like:

To _<insert the contribution you make the lives of others>_ so that _<impact of your contribution>_.

Combining the two approaches, I have reflected on what stands out from my early years. I had a happy and stable childhood so I thought I didn’t have many stories but opening up the discovery uncovered this moment when I was about to start high school. My dad, a Presbyterian pastor, ask me to go for a walk when we were on vacation at a lake cabin. As we walked, he offered to change his job if it would make it easier for my teenage years.

While I responded honestly that his job didn’t bother me at all, I also noted that he was saying this because my older sister had pummeled him with rebellion and hurt during her journey through high school. I vowed to do it differently so he and my mom would know they were good parents. Which wasn’t hard because they were and I was a very different kid than my sister.

Distilling this and other memories down to what drives me now and why, I came up with this “Why” statement:

To encourage and cheer for others so that they feel supported and emboldened in the pursuit of life in the fullest on their individual paths.

Thinking back, I remember my mom warning that I shouldn’t be a caretaker. That certainly could be a pitfall to my “why.” I prefer to think that in telling my story in how I’ve done it differently – whether it be finding a different expression of faith than my parents or choosing to become a single parent, I can help others to know they can find their own paths too.

As Mr. D will tell you, knowing why is a great way to dig deeper into the meaning of things.

(featured photo from Pexels)

What’s Next

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“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” Robert Byrne

Several months back when I wrote a post about performing for likes, Ab of the My Lovable Pest blog, made a comment that he had turned off notifications for when people like a post. I thought it was a pretty good suggestion so I modified the notifications on my own blog so that I don’t receive notifications when people click “like.”

It had a funny effect. At first, I really missed getting the emails that “[alias] liked your post and went on to say “They thought [post name] was pretty awesome.” Actually, they didn’t necessarily think it was awesome – they “liked” it. But more to the point, I had to go through the withdrawal of not getting those dopamine hits in my inbox.

Eventually I got used to it and it led me to focus more on the comments I was getting which was a far more meaningful experience of interaction around any particular topic whether it was something I wrote or I was commenting on something someone else wrote.

But then I started writing for the Pointless Overthinking blog. On Wednesdays, I publish a post on that blog with 27,404 followers. And the settings for that blog are tuned differently so that I do get the “likes” for that post, usually about 100/week.

That felt pretty great for the first few posts but then it morphed into a feeling of “what’s next?” A feeling that Harvard professor and social scientist Arthur Brooks describes as success addiction. We get to a new level and it feels pretty great – and then we adjust to that level and look to the next thing.

His cure for success addiction is to know our “why.” By being deeply rooted in our why, we can hope to get off the treadmill of looking for the next thing because we are grounded in our mission.

The why of my blogging has evolved over time. I’d say that I blog because it helps me process the depth and delight of my experience in life. I find something that I learn or see or feel in a day and by writing about it, I burn it in a little deeper. And when I talk about it with people through comments, I get the gift of seeing it through others’ eyes.

Puzzling through this helps me move through that “what’s next” blah because I remember that what’s next is another conversation with my delightful blogging friends.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Practicing Gratitude

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“The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.” – Mary Davis

Yesterday I my daughter and her friend wanted to ride their bikes to school. So I loaded up my toddler on the back of my bike, threw my mask and wallet in a small backpack and shepherded them through the route we’d planned. After we dropped them off, I rode my toddler the rest of the way to his daycare.

After coming back home and finishing the essential work items I needed to get done, I drove to the store to do the weekend grocery shopping. I loaded my basket with all sorts of yummy fall weekend ingredients – for pumpkin bread, homemade chicken soup along with crisp, juicy apples and crunchy green grapes. I opted for the self-checkout line, scanned the bottle of wine I’d selected as my first item and then hunted in my purse for my wallet to show the attendant.

I didn’t have my wallet. It was still in the bike riding backpack.

As I drove the 7 minutes home to get it while my groceries waited patiently with the attendant, I was grateful that I had enough time to do the extra trip back and forth in a quiet car that felt like a driving meditation.

As I drove the 7 minutes back to the store, I was grateful that the wine was the first thing I’d scanned.

And when I arrived back at the store, I was grateful that the basket of items that I’d carefully selected was still waiting for me.

It’s true what they say, practicing gratitude makes it easier to find, even when you’ve forgotten the other things you need.