Do you live your purpose in life?
Living your purpose in life is the only way to attain true joy. Living someone else’s purpose is easy, and may even be fun for awhile. Live yours today.
I hope you’re not offended by me asking…
It’s not a random question, allow me to explain.
School holidays have come around in Singapore again, and our eldest is in her last long school break before turning 16.
As parents of a teen, we’ve learnt that it’s often important to pick the most unusual times to “ambush” them with the most important discussions.
So, with the exams behind her, we thought that we would discuss, over lunch, the issue of what to look for in a boy that she might want to date.
A list was drawn up, and invariably the names of various boy band members and teen actors came up, along with certain criteria that we knew were clearly not reflective of her values but of things that were projected by popular media.
We started going down the list, with the purpose of showing her that to be truly fulfilled, she should need to live her values and consequently her purpose in life.
Living the purpose of others may at best, make you feel good and appear glamorous etc, for a short time, and at worst, leave you used by others.
The point is so easy to see in this context, one might even say it is stating the obvious.
But saying those words out loud, had a sting for me.
You see, I spent 20 years in a career that wasn’t reflective of my purpose in life. I was a successful corporate lawyer having been head of legal at some of the largest companies, brands, and even one of the most prestigious government organisations.
I felt like I loved that work. I felt important to the purpose of my employers. It made me feel good and appear glamourous, after all I was very well paid, and got to do some of the most exciting legal work in one of the business capitals of the world. All the while, at the back of my mind, I knew I was neglecting my family. I knew the truism that my boss would not be there at my death bed.
I was living someone else’s purpose in life for 20 years.
I was giving my daughter advice from a lesson that I learnt not so long ago.
I’m truly grateful that:
- I get to now run my business from home.
- I get to be at home when my family gets home.
- I get to witness all the moments that I never got to before.
- I get to teach, and have these awkward teenage conversations, and pass my values and purpose to a next generation.
- I get to give back to society and my church, and
- I get to enjoy my time and hobbies.
Seeing how a business like this can transform the social landscape of any overworked society, I’m committed to working with anybody who strongly desires a better quality of life for themselves and their families.
Sadly, I cannot make the commitment to do this for you, or do the work for you. That’s got to come from you.
If you do that, I will commit to you, is my support, and guidance, in showing you how I used a business like this to leave my corporate lawyer’s job, and to start living my purpose in life.
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