The Book of Life

Find your tribe.

Your life is a book written about you, so what is it that you want to do? This question is what you ask yourself every time someone else asks you what you want to do with your life. How do I know this? Is it because I have been in the same exact situations? Certainly, as well as the feelings that go with. I always despised when someone would ask what I was doing for work or career, or what next big plans I had for my life, or who/if I was currently dating and when I would get married and if she was popping out kids anytime soon. My reply never had any enthusiasm, they were simply questions that reinforced how pointless my existence seemed to me. Why does your personal response to these questions even matter? These questions remind you of where we are, who we have become, but not necessarily where we are going. After all, it is your life and not theirs, whether they accept you for the extent your professional and romantic relationships have reached or not. I wanted to write this because I couldn’t get out of my mind the longing desire to have finally discovered what my purpose for being on this planet was, and to share my experiences. To discover that purpose and be able to finally express to others what I am doing for myself, the world, all the while loving it. It was always a question in my own mind, a question I would occasionally return to, but not for very long because I never had the right answer to it. My purpose is to help others. Not in just any way, shape or form, but to help others in discovering their destination, in not just their career or life purpose, but in their relationships as well. It was a difficult journey in discovering mine, it took many years of struggle and feedback, but ultimately, like finding that special someone, came to me when I least expected it.

 

 

 

It came to me, one of my life’s purposes, through trials and tribulation, experiences that needed to happen no matter how burdensome or spiritually damaging they seemed to be; they had to take place for me to arrive at the place and time of discovery. When I was younger, I wasn’t willing to settle for a specific thing to do for the rest of my life, in fact after graduating from high school I certainly had no idea what direction to take my life. Should I go to college, I asked myself, with the response being vehemently no. Should I just start some career and live a life of fair ease, but an utter bore? all the while hating every moment for I was not doing what I was meant to do, like most people in the world are so quickly willing to accept as their fate, no. The military seemed to be my last, yet only option. This option was necessary for me to get to where I am now. Not only did I become stronger mentally and physically but disciplined in the manner that most young people straight from school should witness happening within themselves. This experience was the first step in me finding, stumbling upon, my purpose. Had I settled for some job, or relationship, even though I knew I was worthy of so much more, I would not be here today. Because of that first step I took, I began making other steps too. I went off to college, being the first in my family to do so and to graduate, it felt like an accomplishment for them all. I was on a roll, I started to get more and more involved in things outside of myself, including things that I never felt I was capable enough of accomplishing, such as college. Yet after I graduated, there came a time of immense pain. I had always been working towards something in the military and college, goals within and outside of myself, but after graduating I felt nothing once again. I had nothing of importance to work towards, I had begun experiencing some loss as well. From losing jobs and my value to this world, and losing romantic love, experiencing the loss of a woman I loved deeply, was all necessary in the steps to reach and discover the dharma of my life. I remember the painful words, situations, experiences that tore me apart; but only to build me back up again. I know it may seem different, perhaps wrong, but I am thankful for that pain; in a way the pain I felt from her, led me to finding the path that would build me up into who I was supposed to always have been. This experience, this little moment is worth it all, you feel a new energy as if you are finally being born into the world. It is a horrible experience to go on living, knowing deep inside of yourself that you don’t know your purpose; that you don’t know the reason for your entire existence, for decades I felt this. As a child, I just figured I was a bit of a defect, I was shy and quiet, often being told by those of all ages above me that there was something wrong with me; they never thought to question themselves, and to understand that was just my personality. It wasn’t until high school that I finally began to open more, and the military finally made my personality shine.

 

 

 

 

As a child, I was mostly quiet because everything that came out of my mouth was met with disturbing looks on peoples faces, I was viewed in the same way I witnessed on their faces, and so I kept my mouth shut, and experienced mostly from then on through my minds eye. One thing I noticed is that everyone is willing to waste their limited time. It is as if they expect time to keep on going, which it will, but only after they are gone. Why do people settle? Why do they expect that they can waste their precious time as if it will never end for them? And why do they focus so much major time, on minor things? Perhaps, just perhaps it is because they haven’t discovered their purpose yet, that they don’t know what to do for the rest of the life. An example being my grandfather, having spent decades of his energy and life working for a phone company, wasting that time on a company that wasn’t his and a sector of work that did not fulfill him, and even at the ripe age of eighty, still having no idea what he wants to do with this life, as if he has an unlimited amount of time to always ask himself what his purpose is, and putting major time towards things and circumstances that don’t thrive his thirst for life’s work. I was worried that I would become like him, having wasted most of life for someone else’s dream, and never really working on my own, or at the least having found it.

During the year after having graduated from college and experiencing what I thought was a loss of employment and relationship status, tremendous pain and drug use overtook my life. This year was the greatest experience that had to happen to me, I was nearly there. The many steps that had led to this moment, began to reveal themselves to me. I began to experience the universe through interactions that began to shape into reality. A synchronicity, an elevation of my life and life’s purpose was forming. The road trip my grandfather and I took from coast to coast was around the time when my purpose began to unfold. This week-long trip consisted of many conversations about life, love, career, purpose, and how it all was a part of the path, even the trip itself. This trip was important in showing me that what I had experienced as loss, was in fact just growth and change. I had to lose someone so important and close to me, I had to feel this pain and the words she had ingrained into me, “You have no purpose”, in all of the turmoil and thoughts of suicide, through a festering pain of the mind and the soul I found who I was and have always been before I entered into the world. I am meant to follow the path of life I have created, and to discover the purpose behind it all, and inevitably share a part of my spirit with the world. The true path, the dharma of your life will open your mind and spirit, you will feel a new elevation of your soul and that is not because you have finally found the path, but because you finally can witness and experience it, all the while it is happening, rather than simply existing day in and day out with no true drive. The words that others tell you on finding your purpose, such as “do something that you would do even if you weren’t paid” are true statements. They are words from a place beyond this world though, words that anyone can speak, but, so few invest the time into the actual experience it. Do the things that make you happy, do the things that you would do for free for your life, do the things that make hours seemingly go by in an instant, and every instant feel like a new chapter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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https://www.pexels.com/photo/sunset-person-love-people-69096/

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