I’ve chased myself around the barn for a long time. I’ll pursue what it is I think I am, my passions or purpose. I’ll exclaim them here or there and then I get distracted. I put down my tiny self-eurekas and then forget to keep looking. My process starts and stops often. And I never feel like I truly have a sense of me , my purpose, my “definition”.
Somehow culling yourself down to a sentence or two of purpose seems in many ways important. To rebuild an intentional life, it’s good to know specifically what you truly want to accomplish and are thrilled about doing.You can change it but somehow you should know this about yourself to fulfill it.
But every time I pick up the task of pinning me down, of distilling my life’s purpose, I get distracted. What I really am is afraid. I’m afraid to pigeon-hole myself, that my definition won’t be perfect, I’ll have forgotten something, etc.. But perhaps I’m truly afraid of claiming who I am because I’m afraid to be the real me.
Sometimes we hear our clans tell us that if we don’t do it their way, they won’t support us. We’re afraid we’ll be abandoned if we don’t do it the way others expect us to, even if no one has ever actually said this or described these actions to our faces. We’re just certain there’s a “right way” that’s not exactly our way.
I wrote a post not too long ago entitled Perhaps it’s Permission and Not Purpose You Seek as a way of clue-ing myself into this. We’ve forgotten who we are. We’ve done it the way we thought we were supposed to do it for so long, we’ve forgotten who we are. We’re freaking out and dying inside because we’re not us and we’d have to ask permission to do it another way. But what if we found out what really means the most to us and just did it, even if we did this purposeful action as just a hobby while we kept up the “real” job, we’d will feel immensely relieved. You’ve got to know to go.
So I’m afraid to claim what I value and what I’m passionate about. Ok. So I’m afraid of who I am truly. OK. I’m glad I got that off my chest. Now I’ve got to get back to imperfectly defining myself because I have business to get onto after I do. And I promise myself, I will always be ready to edit my definition of purposeful life if it doesn’t fit with where I am now. Live imperfectly people!
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3 Comments
I always get stuck on the idea of being perfect, especially the first time out of the gate. Absurd. Absurd! Thank you for continuing to remind me. xo
Hi Shalagh, I think it all comes down to acceptance of who we are and not trying to live up to having a certain purpose or to live up to others’ expectations. When we accept who we are, then we can feel comfy in our bodies and our daily lives and know that we are living purposefully x
It absolutely does come down to that. I think that is sometimes buried deeper than people realize. They’ve accepted others’ expectations as their own. Takes a level of awareness to realize this. Happened to my husband and his first marriage. And I think many Moms think that they’ll just be Moms to have a purpose. Acceptance of who we are is the battle of a lifetime sometimes. And yes, that is the only way we can feel comfortable in our own bodies and lives. I’m getting there.