Do you hear it?
Probably not. Let me guess. You’re too busy typing, listening to music, pinning, updating your Facebook page, tweeting, or doing a Google search right?
I know the feeling. It’s been a great distractor for me too.
How Important is Social Media, etc.?
The thing is the farther we are from hearing our own voice, the greater the ocean between us and where we want to be.
The thing is the secret of living your purpose has little to do with all the stuff out there-the how-to articles, the get rich schemes, the social media strategies, etc.
But I get sucked into their trap too. I forget that all the knowledge that’s out there can only do so much. I forget that living my purpose is more about doing the inner work than anything in the physical world that I need to do.
My job in life isn’t to please others. It isn’t to figure out what I’m doing wrong so I can live right. The single purpose of my life is to be true to myself.
It is to listen to the little voice inside of me that says:
I’m on the right track
I’m hanging around the right people
I’m following the direction toward my purpose.
In The Purpose of Your Life, one of the people author Carol Adrienne interviews is gem artist Glen Lehrer. In it Lehrer shares a gem of advice on his journey to live his purpose:
“The pursuit of my purpose has not always been easy. There were times when things were so bad I went out and sole encyclopedias and waited tables. Sometimes you can’t see where you are going. When you don’t feel the world is supporting your efforts, you have to reach back to your life purpose, and remind yourself how far you’ve learned to survive so far.”
It’s scary living on the edge isn’t it?
But it’s much scarier sitting in a valley without any hope that life will be any different today than the one before.
The key to continue living in that nice spot where challenge and purpose meet is to spend as many moments as you can in silence. It’s sitting in quiet and asking the right questions.
There will be times when you won’t hear any answers, but criticism and self-doubt. But if you keep at it, there will be a stronger voice that with certainty says, “You’re on the right path. Keep going.”
And if you don’t hear it, you’ll feel it in your stomach, in the lightness of your chest, in the peace that surrounds your decision, whatever it may be.
Life isn’t easy. It was never meant to be. But if you can stay still, focused and serene while you’re enduring the wave of fear and insecurity, you will eventually move softly to the other side.
That I know for sure.
