Tag: Life

Forget You

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“The more one forgets himself — by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love — the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.” Viktor Frankl.

I hate serving. I hate the idea of being a servant. The word conjures images of people living as slaves and waiting on someone hand and foot because they have no other option. Servitude sucks.

The fact that we have an industry called, ‘the service industry’ irks me. I even used to work in it for a bit (I wasn’t great). To be clear, it’s not the industry that I don’t like, but the name. I bristle at the idea of being in someone else’s control, at their beck and call and having no agency of my own.

But this is not what service is, nor the service industry. One of the main differences is perspective, and shifting my thinking from service being slavery, to a picture of a person working for a greater cause. This creates a different experience. That is the only way that I can comfortably land in a place where I can positively talk about serving another person, as a way of forgetting myself and working towards something bigger. Putting someone else’s needs before mine. (They say that marriage and parenthood offer that sort of experience, but I have seen plenty of married people and parents live out of selfishness, and I have done that many times myself).

When Viktor Frankl talks about being more human when we forget ourselves, he is talking about the emotional experience. When we actively care for someone else, when we are seeking their benefit at the cost of our own, then we are having a greater human experience. Jesus talked about gaining your life only after losing it. There is something special that comes when we give of ourselves, when we sacrifice for others, when we serve. That is the beautiful gift that generosity brings. When we act in a way that puts others in the central part of our life, then we receive the benefit of the generous experience. You can’t stop it, it just happens naturally.

Real slavery does exist in our world, and it is evil. But the kind of service that Viktor Frankl refers to is not that. It is the opposite, it is the freedom to give of yourself to someone else and finding that you gain something amazing in the process.

Life Isn’t Short

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“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it.” Seneca, Roman Stoic Philosopher

I feel like we have been in the Christmas season for two months. There is something about the Australian culture which seems to “wind things down” for the year from mid October.

I know small businesses that work with larger firms and any conversations in the last quarter about new contracts automatically get pushed to the new year – which really means February/March.

Now, there is nothing wrong with managing your workload and recognising that things do get busier in many areas of life towards the end of the year, but the risk is we wish away our most precious and unknown quantity. Our time.

My paraphrase of the quote from Seneca above is “life isn’t short, we just waste a lot of it.” We waste it on things that are not aligned with what we say our priorities are. We waste it because we don’t spend it intentionally.

I encourage you to think about who you want to be at the start 2022. On January 1st, what will you wish you spent time on today?

What is the most important thing? Choose to focus on actions that align with your priorities.  

What can you complete that you have been putting off? Pain delayed is pain magnified.

What can you put off that you have been pushing to complete, but it isn’t a priority? Saying yes to something means saying no to something else. What can you say no to?

In the next few weeks if you are looking forward to working when things are quiet and others are on leave, embrace that and get productive.

If you are taking leave, take the heck out of that leave.

Be intentional about how you finish off the year. Finish it well. Well rested and well prepared for 2022.

Stop Looking for Your Purpose

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It’s a cliché now. Finding your purpose is so mainstream that there are numerous books, podcasts, blogs and articles on how and why you should do it. I can’t tell you how many conversations I have had with young, and not so young, people about how they can find their purpose.

I haven’t really had a succinct answer for them. I can only share about how I found mine – but they are not me, so that might not be helpful.

I can give them lists of the 12 top tips to finding purpose in life, I can lead them to ask the 7 strange questions that will help them find it, or even teach them the 4 easy steps which is guaranteed* to map out their life purpose. (*Not an actual guarantee).

But none of that seems to work.

Here’s what does. Finding purpose in whatever you are doing right now. That will help you find your purpose.

Most likely, your purpose won’t come to you in your late teens/early 20’s as one grand vision which shapes the rest of your life.

More often than not, it will consist of dozens of small pieces that you have picked up at random times, doing random things, in random jobs and having random conversations.  

So, as you go along, find purpose in what you are doing right now, and you will help create your broader purpose in life.

Purpose

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I am sure it doesn’t just happen to me. Other people must think the same questions that seem to come out of the blue, in idle moments, and shock you.

Mostly it’s:

‘what is the point of all this?’

‘What does it all mean anyway?’

‘Isn’t it just a waste of time, we are all going to die anyway?’

Maybe that last one is just my own darkness, but it drives me to find the purpose in my actions. It drives me to take the things that I do daily and connect with them with a greater purpose outside of myself, otherwise I would just stop doing the little things that I consider important. (Although these questions can help you re-define what is considered ‘important’).

As I have refined my thinking over the last few years, each time these questions come, I add a little more to my philosophical outlook on life and create more of my purpose.

Historically, my purpose is to “speak words that bring life”. It has been for 15 years. But what else, what does that actually mean?

Lately my thinking has been along the lines of “creating a better world through creating better people”.

This isn’t the final edit though. There is more refining to come, but the theme is clear. I find my purpose in bringing life and growth. I find my purpose in giving. I find my purpose in generosity.

I don’t have the language nailed yet, but aren’t we all just a work in progress?

The Generous Life

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“You will not be satisfied until you step into a life of generosity” Jason Jaggard

I find it most difficult on Monday mornings. Not every one, but generally it’s a Monday. The day brings with it a sense of longing, questioning and searching. Is what I am doing really worthwhile? What if I am just wasting my time? What if no one else gets it? Is this really what I want to be doing for the rest of my life?

Perhaps you know these questions and the driving force behind them, which is what I would call the search for purpose. What motivates my behaviours? Why do I do what I do?

Some will suggest that we all have a calling – something specific that we are placed on this earth to do and if we don’t find what that is we can miss our calling and then ultimately miss our purpose in life.

Others think that we don’t have a specific task or calling but we are to be the best that we can be wherever we end up. It’s more about the attitude than the action.

If you spend enough time with me you will discover that I don’t go to many extremes, but I like to find somewhere in between. (Why don’t we have both?)

I think we all have certain things that we are called to do, they may turn into our vocation or they may be specific actions along the journey. At the same time the attitude is fundamental, perhaps even more important.

If we, as people are able to act out in generosity, then that attitude will take any action that we do and make it amazing.