What is Purpose Made Of?

Think of it as 5 Ps that impact the quality of your life: your People (the other humans who have hurt or helped you), your Passions (your varied & changing interests and what you desire and enjoy), your Powers (your talents and what you excel at), your Personality (how you think about, see and engage with the world. Your perceptions and perspectives) and most importantly your Pain (the hurt, suffering, and anguish that has been yours alone to bear)

Your People and your Personality deserve special mention. These two elements are more under your control than you think, but often we assume we are at their mercy. You get to choose who you spend your time with. You have the ability to reconsider your perspective.

We are not islands unto ourselves. Whether we like it or not we are impacted by our social surroundings. We are like sponges, often soaking up the good or the bad that others emit. As children we may not be able to choose the people who influence us, but as adults we can.

Likewise, how you see the world can be altered. Children are not aware of the stories they have been told, stories they believed without questioning them. These include stories about others.  Stories about yourself. How you see yourself and the space you occupy in the world. Are you capable? Are you weak? Are you worthy? Who told you these stories and did you believe them and internalize them? Are you aware of how these stories shade everything about you?

Personality, because it encompasses your perceptions, maybe the most important P. It makes a huge difference. Do you see life as happening to you, or do you see yourself as happening back to life? Are you a victim of your circumstances or a creator who is able to use the random, and sometimes cruel, nature of life to your advantage? Research hints that the number one determinant for success in life is your ability to turn fears, failures, setbacks, and suffering into life lessons that fuel personal growth.

These five Ps (your people, powers, passion, personality, and pain) are what you bring with you as you collide with the “pool of life.” These are the pieces of your own purpose-driven jigsaw puzzle. You get to decide how to assemble these pieces and what they will mean to you and the world you influence. How will you impact the pool of life?

You might think I am talking about Destiny; I am not. Destiny suggests something outside yourself. Fate suggests you will arrive somewhere without even trying.  Life does not work that way. You are not living in a fairytale.

Think of the five Ps more like a car you have been given upon your graduation from high school. You have the vehicle, but you still have to fill it up, keep up with the maintenance, climb inside and decide where you will be going and what you will be doing. 

That last part is where choice comes in. You ultimately have to decide what you will do with what you have been given. Some people call this “finding your why,” but that gets it all wrong. Your why is not something you stumble upon. It’s not something your family or social tribe can hand you either, although many will want to. This is something that must be chosen by you and then willfully created from that moment on. It’s a living breathing evolution and you must own it.

These five Ps are the building blocks of Purpose. You don’t discover your purpose all at once, you choose it and that decision triggers its evolution. It’s not destiny or fate. Your life path up until this point can certainly help with your decision. But in the end, you must choose how you will assemble and use your Pain, your Passions, your Powers, your People, and your Personality. If you are in touch with your purpose, you will understand these different elements must be used and combined in a way that makes a difference only you can manifest.

When your stone strikes the pool of life its impact depends on what you choose to make your life mean; how you decide to matter. The fall from the ceiling to the pond is life before that choice. The journey from water's surface as you sink to the lakebed below is the time you have left on this planet. Long after you have sunk to the bottom and your time is settled, your ripples will still be influencing the water above.

Will those ripples lift others up, inspire and heal? Or will your contribution generate negative waves of destruction that crash into others & sink their own quest for purpose? Will your contributions have a purifying effect that lasts long after your own journey has ended? Or will you muddy the waters adding nothing the world can use? Will you make it all about your needs, your pain, and what matters only to you? Will your stone of life leave a slimy, toxic stench in its wake? Or will you leave behind pristine air and positive ions that charge all who come later?

You and you alone are responsible for that choice. You can use your time to seek power and status, or you can create a life of meaning and purpose for yourself and others. That choice, and the actions that follow, determine what type of human you are and what type of person you will become. Next Level Humans choose to grow themselves and evolve the world in the positive ways only they can.

There has never been another human like you and there never ever will be again. You have a job to do. That job is your purpose. To a Next Level Human, life is about what you can give to the world, not what you can take from it.