What were you put on Earth to do? Most people don’t know the
answer. Lots of folks get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch TV and
go to sleep. That’s their day. But that’s not their purpose.
In most cases, they probably don’t know any better. This was
how their parents lived; this was how they grew up. Maybe they think this is all
life has to offer. Well, I’m here to sound the wake-up call.
There’s a great scene in the movie “The Matrix”
between Morpheus, a mentor, and Neo, his student. Morpheus wants Neo to let go
of what he used to think of as reality, his mundane, day-to-day existence, where
his true purpose was neither recognized nor realized.
I want you to create a new reality, where you recognize your purpose
for being on this planet, and realize your purpose is waiting for you to figure
out.
If you don’t know your purpose, then your first purpose is
to get a purpose. When you look at the lives of great people, you can see that
they had a definite purpose and they knew it. For example, Walt Disney’s
purpose: “To make people happy.” Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller’s
purpose: “Humanity’s comprehensive welfare on spaceship Earth.”
Henry Ford’s purpose: "To mass produce, mass distribute, and have cars
mass consumed.” Andrew Carnegie’s purpose: “To manufacture and
market steel.” Mother Teresa’s purpose: “To care for and comfort
the poor, sick, and needy.”
I don’t want you to confuse a purpose with a goal. Goals are
great! I teach goal setting, and believe it is crucial to achieving success. But
goals, alone, can be undirected. You can have hundreds of goals (and I hope you
do), but you may only have one purpose, and that purpose should give your goals
direction and meaning.
Discovering your purpose will put your life into crystal-clear perspective.
The saddest places on Earth are graveyards. Not because people are
buried there, but because dreams, talents, and purposes that never came to fruition
are buried there. Graveyards are filled with books that were never written, songs
that were never sung, words that were never spoken, things that were never done.
You have talents and gifts that no one else can offer. There are
things you can do that no one else can do quite the way you can do them. Don’t
rob this Earth of your purpose by taking it to the grave with you. You have unique
talents and gifts that were given to you to be shared. Your task is to figure
out what your purpose is and then live it. PE
