The Search for Purpose…

A friend of mine recently lost his father-in-law.  Well… he didn’t actually lose his father-in-law.  He knew exactly where his father-in-law was, which happened to be at home dying of cancer.  It’s funny how cancer ravages an individual and leaves tattered survivors behind.  No… not really funny, but, you know, devastating.  Kind of strange how some of our ways of stating things make absolutely no sense, isn’t it?  Why yes — yes it is.  Stinking English language.

So anyway, my friend’s father-in-law retired not that long ago.  Shortly after retiring, he was diagnosed with cancer.  Shortly after being diagnosed, it looked like treatment was working.  Shortly after the prognosis looked positive, the cancer got worse.  Shortly after the cancer got worse, my friend’s father-in-law was given two weeks to live.  A couple of days after being given two weeks to live, the father-in-law died.

The end.

… but this entire scenario has been playing with my head for the weeks that have passed since the father-in-law passed.  And then this week, a nice lady who was not that much older than me had a relatively routine surgery and, due to complications from that surgery, she passed away.  She left behind a loving husband and grown children who now need to find a way to their futures without her.  Of course, she was warned about the dangers of the procedure before she underwent it, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of available options.  Can anyone say, “Life bites”?  She was actually someone outside of my immediate family who had read this blog and thanked me for doing what I do.  She enjoyed it and got a chuckle or two from the experience… and now she is gone.  Well, looks like my dad and my brother are, once again, my sole readers…

I’ve been thinking to myself about what I would do if I knew I had a determined amount of time left.  Would I continue working if I knew I only had a month left to live?  I’d dare say I would not continue working.  I would want to enjoy as much of the last of life as possible.  I’d quit my job and sell as much of my stuff as possible to make my final days an enjoyable memory for the family I’d be leaving behind.  But then… people who are in the end-stages of life-ending disease rarely want to do little more than be as comfortable as possible and die in a timely manner, right?  These people aren’t usually in any shape to tackle that European adventure that they kept saying “some day” to.  So fantasizing about what one would or would not do during the final stages of life is a sick little game that will lead to nothing more than severe disappointment, I’m sure.  And this really got me to thinking.  Aren’t we all, in one form or another, in the final stages of life?  For some of us, the prognosis is decades, for others, weeks, days, hours?  And something can always come along and screw everything up, right?  I wonder how many people who are given weeks to live due to disease die in automobile accidents every day…

We are all dying.

Period.

Dying is the only thing we are assured of in this life.  Death is the only goal that will be reached by every individual on the planet, regardless of race, gender, creed, social status… or whatever.  From the moment we are born, our bodies begin the various functions that will end up using us up and spitting us out.

We are all dying.

So why don’t we act like we are dying?  We have precious little time on this planet, yet most of us still are avoiding the things that we really want to do; the things that, on our deathbeds, will end up being missed opportunities and fill us with regret.  We keep telling ourselves, “Someday, when I have more time,” or, “Someday, when I have more money.”  Wake up, folks.  More time and money are things we may never have.  If you have stuff you want to get done, you better get to getting after it.  You could be dead tomorrow, so don’t delay.  Think of all of the wonderful things we as a species could accomplish if we started living like our time here is limited.  Think of how few people would be in a job or a relationship that wasn’t fulfilling to them if they started living like they didn’t have eternity to do something with this life… because no one does.  What we accomplish in our short time here is the only shot we get.

Of course, realism always sets in when I start thinking like this.  Gotta put food on the table, right?  Gotta pay them bills.  Gotta put gas in the car.  You can’t just try to do whatever you want with your life without being destroyed by the consequences.  My mind always quickly changes back to: maybe someday when I have more time and money… maybe then I can try to accomplish something enjoyable with my life.  I can make the boredom of everyday life disappear once I have a little more time and money…  Well, I’m coming to the realization that I need to say…

Screw that noise!

This is my life.  Your life is your life.  I have a deep desire to do something I am passionate about with my life… to figure out my purpose and pursue it.

When I was a kid, I used to think that when I grew up and started making money and got a family, that would be when life really began.  Well, having a family is great and gets me through from day to day, but I soon realized that not everyone can make good money.  So, I started thinking that once I can get to retirement, that’s when life really begins.  Of course, to get to retirement at a decent age, you have to make good money (or sacrifice much of the comfort from current life to stick it all away for retirement)… and “good money” isn’t easy to find.  So retirement (if I live to see it…we are all dying, after all), is close to half a lifetime away, and half a lifetime (when you are 42) is way too long to wait for life to begin.

I know that I need to appreciate the little things, or I will prove to the world that I can’t comprehend a platitude.  But focusing on the little things, as fulfilling as that can be, does not seem like a very redeeming purpose.  I know that our purpose is supposed to be God’s purpose for us, but I highly doubt that God’s sole purpose for me on this planet is to appreciate the little things… that just sounds too boring; I would hope that God has given me more talent than that.

The only non-family activity that I do that feels rewarding is volunteering.  Boy Scouts, church, whatever.  Time spent volunteering (as much as I usually dread actually going to do the work) always leaves me feeling fulfilled.  You know, like a job has been well done (whether it actually has or not).  It feels good.  I do not, nor have I ever, felt the same kind of satisfaction working a job.  It’s this whole big Catch-22.  If I could actually make enough money to meet my needs by volunteering, I would probably be semi-satisfied with life.  But if I made money, it wouldn’t be volunteering… it would be a job… and like most jobs, it would probably suck.  So maybe I just need to volunteer more of my free time to find more satisfaction and purpose, but I am usually so drained after 8+ hours of working a job that the last thing I want to do is take more time away from my family than my current level of volunteering already takes.

See… damn it… this is why I should win the stinking lottery:

• I enjoy volunteering; it leaves me feeling fulfilled.
• I have financial needs.
• If I win the lottery, my financial needs would go away.
• If my financial needs went away, I could spend 8+ hours a day volunteering.
• By spending 8+ hours of my day volunteering, I would be helping causes that need help and I would feel fulfilled at the end of the day (instead of just too tired to fulfill my current obligations to family and the organizations I volunteer time to).
• This is a win/win situation.  Nobody loses… so why can’t I win the freaking lottery?!?

I can’t win the lottery because God’s purpose for me isn’t to volunteer all of my free time.  I can dig that.  But if my purpose involves a future of life-draining 8-5s, I most definitely cannot dig that.

“Well, nobody said it was going to be fair!”

Yeah, and nobody asked my opinion before putting me here, so that doesn’t fly.  Thus, the search for purpose continues.

I actually recently read “The On-purpose Person” by Kevin W. McCarthy… and I got excited.  It’s a narrative about a guy (who sounds a lot like me… but who makes a crapload more money than me) who feels purposeless.  Through a series of referrals, the man in the story visits various on-purpose people who volunteers their time to help the man find his purpose and start living his life on-purpose.  Whoa… that sounds pretty cool.  So, I check out an introduction to Kevin McCarthy’s web-based program that helps people find their purposes.  The first lesson was free and didn’t really provide too much useful info.  In order to get the good stuff, you need to pay for the seminar series… and it’s like 200 bucks.  And it sounds like you have to stop having a lot of fun and grow up and stuff, so I’m not exactly sure this program is for me.

“But… in the story, all of those on-purpose people gave their time and advice for free to the man,” I point out.

“But that was a story,” says the voice of reason.

“So, in real life, people aren’t willing to give their time to help others find their purpose?” I ask.

“Of course not,” says the voice of reason.  “In real life, people, including Kevin W. McCarthy have mortgages and life insurance policies and the need to eat.”

“Well,” I say, “real life kinds of sucks when compared to the story.”

“Nobody ever said it was going to be fair,” says the voice of reason.

Sometimes, I hate the voice of reason.  So the search continues.

I’m kind of thinking a more self-sustaining lifestyle may have some rewards…