Arising from the Ashes
Would I have the nerve to use it? If I did, would I screw it up like I’d screwed up the rest of my life?
Halfway up to Little Glassy Mountain, I stop to catch my breath during my morning walk to start my day. My mind flashes to a time in the early ’80s, a bad and ugly yet necessary time. I’m lying on the bathroom floor in my apartment in Greensboro, North Carolina, during another time of contemplation. As I lie in a fetal position on the floor, sobbing, I can’t remember how I ended up there or how long I’d been there. I know only that I’m in great pain and will do anything to make it stop. I imagine what I might do if I had a gun. Would I have the nerve to use it? If I did, would I screw it up like I’d screwed up the rest of my life? The more I think about it, and the more real the gun becomes until finally I realize it’s not my imagination but a real gun — a snub nose revolver — I hold in my hand.
I feel the smooth wooden handle in my palm and the cold metal circle of the snub nose pressed against my temple. My finger begins to tighten on the trigger. Just a little more pressure, a quick flash of pain, and the deeper pain will finally be over. Funny, I think as I lay there, how many people will be surprised to learn of my suicide. To outward appearances, I’m a successful veterinarian with my own practice, investments in real estate, a fancy car, a wallet full of credit cards — all the trimmings of a supposedly successful life. But beneath the well-crafted exterior is a hollow core of emptiness and suffering. My life feels worthless without any real meaning. All the adornments of my “Good Life” don’t add up to true happiness or fulfillment. The truth is, I feel alone in the world, with no one who truly cares about me or understands what I’m going through.
Suddenly, someone has invaded my privacy. “Go away,” I think as loudly as I can, then realize I’m also shouting it. “Go away! Leave me alone!”
But whoever it is, doesn’t leave. A moment later, I smell the pleasant fragrance of a woman’s perfume, then the voice of an angel. “It’s OK, Brad. We’re going to get you some help. It’s OK.” I recognize the voice of my friend Rebecca.
Now, as I sit watching the exquisite sunrise over the Blue Ridge Mountains, that day in Greensboro seems to be from a different person’s life, and in many ways, it is. I am no longer that confused, scared, lonely young man. I no longer practice veterinary medicine; instead, I’m one of the co-founders of Life On Purpose Institute. And today, I can truthfully say my life is filled with purpose and meaning.
The journey of the last two decades has been a wild roller coaster ride, filled with slow climbs up and exciting, often scary descents. It’s what I affectionately term my purposeful path. Before my near-suicide, I traveled the path mostly asleep, unaware that I was even on a journey. Then came ten years of awakening, with a few long naps mixed in. For the last sixteen years, as I’ve continued my awakening process, I’ve also done my best to assist others along their own purposeful path. What follows are some key insights I’ve discerned along the way. It is my hope that within these points, you will find a few nuggets of gold that will assist you along your own journey.
Rethinking Purpose
As I reflect on that time in Greensboro, trying to distinguish some of the significant changes that needed to take place, I realize that one of the most important was changing the way I think about life purpose. Over the past decade, I’ve asked hundreds of people the question, “In your view, what is a life purpose?” Not what their life purpose is but what a life purpose is. In the vast number of responses, the common thread goes like this: “A life purpose is what I’m meant to do while I’m alive.” Or, “It’s what I’m meant to accomplish that only I can accomplish. “ Or “It’s what I’m here to do that will give me joy and satisfaction.” The answers generally focus around doing.
I’ve come to take a different view. What if a life purpose isn’t what you do? What if, instead, it’s the context or vessel into which you pour your life, which then shapes your life and all you do in each moment?
Your life purpose is like a cup into which you pour the water known as your life, and that water is composed of three basic components: you, a conscious, living person; time, since all of our lives exist in moments of time; and what you’re doing in those moments in time.
There’s a close relationship between what we do and our life purpose, just like there’s a close relationship between a cup and the water within it. Yet they are both distinct. This subtle difference can make all the difference in how satisfying and fulfilling our lives can be. It also makes a huge difference in helping us bring clarity to our life purpose.
You’ve probably heard the old joke about the man who loses his keys in a dark alley but searches for them under a streetlight because the light is better there. Are you like that man, looking for your life purpose under the street lamp of “doing” simply because it’s easier? If so, you may want to start looking in a different arena of life — the arena of “being,” because that’s one of the components of someone’s life purpose. Let’s go back to our analogy of the cup and the water. The real question isn’t about the composition of the water but about the composition of the cup. What are the basic components of a life purpose that creates a powerful, shaping force for your life, long-lasting and enduring for your entire life or beyond, and which allows you plenty of room to play and express yourself?
I’ve discovered that blending together four basic components results consistently in a life purpose with those qualities, not just for me, but also for many people. They are:
• Vision: The first component is a unique vision of what you see to be possible for your life, your community, and, ultimately the world. Often times, determining your vision of what’s possible is more of a remembering process, since we all begin life with a sense of possibility. Unfortunately, many of us lose that sense of awe and wonder as we grow older and are repeatedly told to “get real.”
• Values: Each of us has a set of core values, those intangibles of life that matter the most to us, that we’d be willing to give our lives for. Perhaps we’re not quite ready to stand in front of a firing squad for them, but we are willing to give our lives in service of having these values be more present in the world in which we live.
• Tags: pondering, life purpose: Who we are at the core of our being, our very soul, is the third basic component that makes up our life purpose. It’s the essence of who we are, that part we know we, ourselves, can count on and which others can count on as well.
• The Glue: When we blend these three components together, we get the makings of a force that can shape our lives in each moment as we do whatever we’re doing. But the recipe isn’t complete yet. We’re still missing a key “secret ingredient” — the glue holding it all together. We can think of that glue in several different ways. One is to view it as the universal, attractive force of love that binds us all to each other and to all of life. Or we can think of it as our relationship to God or a Higher Power, or call it our spirituality or our spiritual nature. Whatever the description, this fourth ingredient, when mixed with the other three, results in a powerful, long-lasting force that can shape our lives and all we do while still giving us plenty of room to express ourselves fully.
Why aren’t more of us allowing our divinely inspired life purposes to shape our lives? Because there’s a second force that has been shaping them for so long, we’re mostly unaware of it. In fact, it’s because we are unaware of it that it continues to have such a strong influence on our life.
What’s Shaping Your Life?
Consider this. Your life is always being shaped by something. If that’s the case — and for the moment I’m asking you to consider that it is — then what shapes our lives before we’re clear about what our true life purpose is?
If you look at the world, I believe you’ll agree that most of our lives aren’t being shaped by unconditional love, a bold vision of what’s possible, our core values, or the essence of who we are. So what is this second shaping force?
It begins forming in the early years of our lives, what the old Wonder Bread commercials used to call the “formative years.” Of course, many things influence our early lives, including our parents, siblings, teachers, where we grow up, socioeconomic status, family’s religion, and the media, to name just a few. Actually, it’s our response or reaction to all these factors that begin to shape our lives as we’re growing up. I call this shaping force the “inherited purpose.”
Here’s an example of how an inherited purpose forms. On May 6, 1957, Orrin Swift, better known by his friends as “Swifty,” wrote the following note to his wife, Pattie, on the way out the door on a fishing trip:
If I catch too many fish I’ll come home and clean them for supper.
Don’t worry, most likely I’ll catch everything but fish.
I love you.
Swifty
A little over 48 hours later, his body was pulled from Long Pond in Freetown, Massachusetts. A heart attack had killed him less than two weeks before my eighth birthday. My life was tossed topsy-turvy. Not only had I lost my dad, since he hadn’t planned to die at 43, but he also left us with no insurance and no real savings.
Mom had to sell the house in Massachusetts and move to North Carolina, where her family could help her raise two sons. One of my most vivid memories from that time is of my mother sitting at her little desk in the corner of the living room of our much smaller home, muttering about how there were too many bills and not enough money. I didn’t realize it at the time, but those overheard conversations contributed significantly to my inherited purpose, shaping it into: “I must be smart and know all the answers or pretend that I do, and I must work really hard to get ahead so I won’t be poor and so people won’t leave me.”
That became the major shaping force of my life for the next 35 years, eventually leading me to contemplate suicide on the bathroom floor. I had worked hard, depended on my intelligence, and avoided poverty. But somehow, in the process, I’d managed to drive away most of the people in my life. Most importantly, missing from my life was any sense of satisfaction, fulfillment, or meaning.
We Each Have a Choice
I believe we each are given the power to choose in every moment what will shape our lives: universal, unconditional, grace-filled love — or fear, a sense of lack, or a need to struggle for survival. For example, I now choose to have my life shaped by my life purpose: “To live a life of purposeful, passionate, and playful service; mindful abundance balanced with simplicity; and spiritual serenity.”
What will you choose to have shaped your life this week?
I’d like to share with you a simple yet powerful “purpose pondering.” As you go through your life this week, periodically stop and ask yourself these questions:
At this moment, is my life being shaped by love or fear?
If the answer is “fear,” then ask yourself this question: If I were to now pivot and allow my life to be shaped by God’s universal, unconditional love, how would my thoughts, feelings, words, and actions shift?
I believe you will find this to be a great way to resume your journey along the purposeful path even as you continue to clarify your true purpose and your inherited purpose.
Click Here to Stay Informed & On Purpose
W. Bradford Swift has enjoyed a combo career as a writer and life coach for over thirty years and now coaches aspiring authors to write that someday, one day book TODAY. http://wbradfordswift.com/writing-coach/
