All is not yet lost

God and our life purpose

An exercise from Steve Pavlina's blog archives is titled 'Find your life's purpose in about 20 minutes.'  It was an interesting idea and I wanted to try it.  I closed the door to my room, maximized a Word window and started writing down possible purposes as he suggested.  There were a couple of things that resonated, but nothing hit the jackpot.  After over an hour, it was time for me to leave for Mass, and I hadn't yet gotten anywhere.  I was a little discouraged but hopeful that Mass, prayer and reflection could only help in my getting an answer.  I haven't yet continued the exercise, but intend to later tonight, and will post an update when I'm done.

Here's what I have thus far that is sparking emotions:
healing, sharing God's love, healing people's pain, trusting God's plan, learning the depths of God's love

I didn't expect to have this much trouble with the exercise. Steve does mention that if you are resistant to the idea it might take longer, but I didn't think I was resistant at all.  I see two possibilities for why this might be happening.  One is that I am on the right track but just missing some piece of the puzzle that is important.  The other (and more disturbing) possibility is that I am still only just regurgitating conditioned responses - that my true life's purpose is something so completely alien to my upbringing/education/belief system that I am unable to imagine it, or unconsciously refusing to see it.  Something that didn't involve God at all, or that involved a faith/belief system that was contrary to what I believe would fall into this category.  I've tried throwing some weird outlandish stuff in there to get my mind off the entrenched patterns, but I keep coming back to the stuff I listed above.

Am I ready to consider a life in which God is not central to the purpose of my existence?  I don't know, and considering I just got back into an active faith that strengthens me as opposed to a neglected faith that kept me bound, I don't know if it's even a good thing to attempt.  Nonetheless I do want to finish this exercise, to see what I end up with. 

I will update when I am done.

posted by TiredMama @ 5/21/2006 08:35:00 PM