Intentionality: Key to a Worthy Life
“People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going.” — Earl Nightingale
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Namaste!
I welcome you.
May God bless you and your loved ones with joy eternal!
In this essay, we take up the uplifting theme: “Intentionality is the key to a worthy life.”
Section I: The Conventional Way of Living Our Lives
Have you ever taken a careful look at the way you live your life on a day-to-day basis?
If you have ever done so, you will come to realise that you are just a slave!
Yes! I am right.
Your life is just slavishly conformity to the tune of others.
Stated otherwise, you do not choose how you live your day-to-day life.
You simply go on reacting to what others say or do.
These “others” include the whole wide world: your family, colleagues, bosses, friends (so-called), relatives….down to your newspaper delivery boy.
Thus, if any of these others say or do something good to you during your typical day, you feel uplifted immediately.
But if they behave otherwise, which happens thousands of times more often, you feel miserable by the same token!
Is this the way to live life?
Section II: The Diametrically Opposite Way of Living Life
My brothers and sisters, so I am asking you to begin thinking…
…thinking about something profound.
I am asking you to consider living life by the path less travelled.
And that path is to live life intentionally.
In our context, “intentionally” will include everything you do consciously — deliberately — by your choice.
It is something foreign to what you have been doing so far.
So, in the next section, let us delve a bit deeper.
Section III. Choice: The Divine Entity with Miraculous Powers
Yes.
The basis of the radically uplifting way of living life, I am proposing, is “choice.”
You see, “choice” is just a small 6-letter word…
…but what a mind-boggling power it packs inside!
Now, as you will agree, human life is a collection of a finite number of days with very definite start and end dates.
Therefore, the quality of these days will ultimately determine the quality of your life overall.
So, if you choose to spend your typical day in a manner that is most meaningful to you, then your overall life will be proportionately meaningful, too.
And “a meaningful life” is the greatest blessing that we can ever have in this mortal life.
One of the most effective means towards living such a meaningful life is “goal setting”.
Such “goal setting” will comprise:
a) choosing the most meaningful goal of the day
(ideally this goal must be only ONE in number)
b) framing the list of the supporting actions and implementing them in a manner and time frame chosen by you
c) reviewing the progress periodically, with its periodicity and review mechanism chosen by you
d) fine-tuning the process at a pace and in a manner chosen by you
The principal entity in the whole process is “you”: it is you who is choosing everything from start to finish.
Section IV. The Magical Effect on Your Life
When you live your life intentionally in this manner, its effect on your life can only be described by one word: ‘profound.’
For God has designed you to be an active doer…you are a goal-seeking entity, as Maxwell Maltz explains so eloquently in his superb book “Psycho-Cybernetics”.
So, you will find your greatest fulfilment when you deliberately go after your “chosen” goal with the maximum vigour at your disposal.
Then, as you start giving all you have to your life, life will also start reciprocating magnificently.
Life will begin rewarding you with the highest reward it can bless you with: “a meaningful life.”
Summing up
So, my brothers and sisters, just start.
Begin exercising your God-given power of living life intentionally from this moment onward.
That will give you the most tremendous power on your hands: the power to determine your own life and hence, your destiny.
