A common thought tossed around the self-help community is to “Live life with Purpose.” The basis for this idea often quotes Socrates who wrote in 399BC, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I would argue that there is something much more important than living life WITH purpose, and that is living life ON purpose.
In my previous post, I mentioned that life is a journey, Hopefully, most of us have set some lifetime goals for ourselves while we are here having this human experience. These goals often include family, education, business, spirituality, and travel. I have also heard it said that “goals without a plan to achieve them are merely dreams.” The path to our goals is fraught with innumerous decisions every day, each decision ultimately getting us closer to our goals or taking us further away from them. How much effort are we putting into these decisions? Do we do what’s easy? Do we do what’s comfortable? Do we do what makes us happy in the short term? Do we take a moment and ask ourselves, “Does this get me closer to or further away from my goals?” Regardless of how you make those decisions, even if you put no thought into them at all, you are doing it on purpose.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in our relationships. What many of us fail to realize, however, is that almost every decision we make impacts a relationship. We understand the obvious relationships:
The Family Unit: One of, if not the most obvious relationship is that within our own family unit including spouse and children. Add to that, maybe to a slightly lesser degree, is the next step of separation away – parents, siblings, aunts and uncles. It’s the one relationship that seems to take most of our energy.
Business: The concept of “it’s not about what you say, it’s more important how you make me feel” is no more apparent than in business. This goes for interactions between co-workers, managers and employees, and clients. These may be the easiest decisions we make that are mostly goal oriented. Are your business relationships gentler than your family relationships? Do you work as hard on your family relationships as you do on your business ones?
Friends and Extended Family: How authentic are we when we are with people that we are the most comfortable? Do we avoid the tough topics to keep peace? Do we make jokes to avoid engaging in difficult situations? These are the people that we should be able to most easily be ourselves, to seek guidance, to practice putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations that could aid future growth and get us closer to our goals.
Strangers: The clerk at the store, the server at the restaurant, the person in the car next to you in traffic, the young family you meet on the walking path – how do you interact in those relationships where you have nothing to gain? Yes, they too are relationships. It starts before you even first meet them. Do you have preconceived feelings toward specific groups of people that dictate how you interact with them? Maybe you don’t trust someone of a different race or ethnicity. Maybe you withdraw from strangers of the opposite sex. Maybe you call yourself an introvert and just don’t want to deal with people you don’t know. I would suggest that each stranger you meet is an opportunity to learn more about yourself, to discover new paths to reach your goals.
Self: Ah, probably the most important relationship in our lifetime and the one we give the least attention to. How many of us are actively pursuing our dreams and how many of us are just on auto-pilot, hoping that we’ll somehow just magically reach our destination? How many of us, after doing something ‘dumb’, ask ourselves, “Why did I do that?” It goes back to my original premise that one of the most important things we can do is “live our life on purpose.” Be thoughtful in the choices you make. Understand the consequences of each and every little decision you make every day. You want that extra piece of cake? Fine, does that get you closer to or further from your weight goals? You want to sleep-in today instead of hitting the gym or taking that hike on the trail? Great, but does that decision get you closer to or further from your health goals?
The gotcha when we look back on all of these little decisions, is that we make every single one of them on purpose. We have choices: A or B, This or That, Yes or No, Now or Later. We make every decision on purpose, either for the short-term gain, the long-term gain, or to postpone any immediate responsibility. They are all valid reasons, just be mindful of them.