Purpose for Living … at all Ages

Sadly, many people die inside, long before they’re buried. Quoting from that great book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living, “Make no mistake about it, even young folks can experience this [dying inside long before they’re buried]. There are too many in their 30’s and younger who quit on themselves and never reach their full potential.”

Okay, I was kinda bragging there because that book was written by me, but I sincerely believe there’s a lot of good motivational stuff in that book, that point being just one of them.

There are other people that think they have all the time in the world and they never quite grab a hold of their lives or find direction and true purpose. Hey, I understand that because it can be really tough on most people to figure out their “true purpose” for living. You see evidence of this everywhere among all age groups. You can hear it in the way people talk about their lives and about the future.

You can see it in their eyes when you really pay attention to people. Listen to their unenthusiastic or cynical voices and what they are talking about. What has happened to them? Aren’t we well educated in this country? Isn’t there a lot of wealth and opportunity all around?

Why are so many people beginning to die just when they are in a position to be having the time of their life? I’m not talking about just young, middle-aged people, but also, many times, it’s retired people who now have all the time in the world, but they just can’t seem to figure out their purpose for living.

When we were children, the future looked bright, inviting, and full of possibilities. We could hardly wait to embrace it and we set our young sights on becoming an astronaut or Miss America or a famous soccer or basketball player, or maybe we wanted to drive a race car or get rich or travel the world. But somehow, between then and our midlife years, we lose our way. We lose sight of our dreams. We become more “practical” when it comes to the day to day and we just hope for a better future.

Why is that? And more importantly, how did it happen? Why do so many people just let go of life and let themselves go, physically, mentally, financially, and in so many other ways? When life speeds up, many slow down. What, then is the solution?

It’s right there the in the corner of your mind. It’s all about death. Whose death? Your death and mine! As you get older, it’s all about how your mind begins to think about your own inevitable demise, your checkout time, your adios amigos day. In other words, the end. Your end!

As you and I hit midlife and beyond, we can’t help but begin thinking of our lives in a totally different way than we did when we were 18, 25 or 35. Back then, we intellectually knew that someday we were going to die. But on a real gut level, on an emotional level, we really couldn’t accept or believe this about ourselves. That event was so far in the future that it wasn’t real to us. I remember thinking when I was very young, “By the time I’m 70 or 80 I’m pretty sure science will have figured out how to extend life by maybe even 100 or 200 years!” Wow, what a fool I was, but it certainly helped me not to worry about or fret over my ultimate demise. There are some things we can do to our thinking that can make our remaining years so much more enjoyable and productive. I’ll, address that in next week’s blog.