How to discover your mission in life
When I was a kid my two favorite past-times were playing school and I always wanted to be the teacher or play Adventurer and the adventurer was always a seeker of great secrets, secrets of the Earth and Sea, learning all the skills and wiles and ways of nature. I sought out the treasures of the earth and the bones of her being and then I wrote it all down, made up tales of my great adventures and I had a very vivid imagination.
I remember as a child saying so many times; When I grow up I'm going to be and that going to be kept changing up until I was about ten or twelve and then suddenly I knew exactly what I was meant to be, my mission in life and I determined someday, someway I would accomplish my dream, my reality. It took me nearly another 50 years to really succeed but I did and I never gave up. The path was not easy but the way was sure. I took a few too many detours, got off on the wrong path but the desire, the hope never left me and it always came back to I want to teach and I want to write. I want to be a writer who also teaches. My mission became my passion. By the time was sixteen I had refined it a little, started to shape the idea of what sort of writer I wanted to be and what interest I had that I wanted to teach.
I think we are all born with an innate desire to be and/or do something special with our lives, that something that is uniquely assigned to our being like a predestined plan, life mapped out and it is up to each of us to chose or not to chose to follow the map. Sometimes life gets in the way. We make decisions that end up taking us down a different path. Our parents, teachers, other family members try to discourage our aspirations and goals and even though deep down we know differently we listen and believe them. It is a foolish notion, just a foolish dream. Forget it. This is what you should do and you listen and you try to follow someone else's dream. You may end up being reasonably content but it is not your dream and your dream keeps coming back and coming back and never really leaves you. It nudges you awake in the middle of the night. It rattles your cage when you are having a lousy day at work and when you are alone and beside yourself you think again about your dream and you know, you know it is the path you must follow for your life to truly have meaning and purpose. That dream is without doubt the mission in life you were born to. Whatever it was that truly captured your hope and desire in your youth is probably the mission of your life. If you can't let go of it and it won't let you go what is keeping you from following it? Sometimes we let the world and its opinions get in our way and eventually you will regret doing that.
I said in the beginning I wanted to be a writer, a writer who teaches and today I am. It took a lot of turns and twist in the road to get here and I have enough rejection slips to paper the walls of Winchester Cathedral. At first those rejection slips were painful and discouraging and then I realized what I wrote just wasn't what they needed or not the style of writing they desired. It wasn't a personal attack on my talent or lack of it. I got over it and it didn't kill the dream. It didn't even seriously wound it.
Sometimes it takes longer to achieve the goal or the mission because we lack the experiences and knowledge, the wisdom we will need later to accomplish the plan. All those detours, twist and turns, what we thought were bad decisions and stumbling blocks, all that grief and sorrow and discouraging moments were really stepping stones building the pathway, giving us the tools we needed to be all we would be. Trust me when I say you can only fake happy and content for just so long and if you aren't working toward your real mission in life, even if it is only one baby-step at a time, then you are not truly happy. Never lose sight of your dream, your true mission in life, that longing to be whatever it is you would be. Believe me, you can if you think you can and you won't if you never try.
I believe we are each given certain gifts, gifts of the soul even before we are born. I also believe there are in life obstacles we must all overcome, deal with and lessons we must learn before we can obtain the purpose for which we were born and I believe we were all born with a specific purpose. This may sound absurd but I think that plan is probably written in our DNA. It is as much a part of our being as our heart beat and each breath we take.
I believe in God and I believe God has set a plan for each of us and that plan is the mission to which we were born; that desire of our being and it is up to each of us to follow or not as we so choose. This does not in any way mean we do not live up to our responsibilities as a husband, wife, parent, employee but even those responsibilities can not keep us from following our hearts desire if we will follow and if we will follow the way will be made clear and the door will open.
For a long time I just sat around and dreamed about it; my mission, my hearts desire, my goal for me in my life but it didn't happen until I made an effort and continued to make the effort to follow my dream despite the obstacle in the pathway and the responsibilities I had in my life. Today I am a writer. Today I am a teacher. I am a teacher who writes. I have no doubt but what I am doing exactly what I was meant to do. Today I am happy, truly happy.
How do you discover your mission in life? Look inside yourself, into the heart and soul of you and listen to what it is telling you and believe. If you believe it you can achieve it.