Friedrich Nietzsche once said “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.” Couldn’t agree more with this. However, this is easier said than done because unlike animals who are guided by instincts, humans are guided by rational thought and free will makes it that much harder to decipher what the end game is. As a result thereof, aimlessness is likely to set in if we don’t make a conscious effort to determine what our higher sense of purpose is. A trip down memory lane is littered with examples of individuals who stood for something and some even met their untimely demise courtesy of standing their ground.
All monkeys cannot hang from the same branch is an African proverb that can be interpreted in several ways. It speaks to the diversity of life and the various ways of killing a cat. With that said, life is not a straight line and the ways of discovering our higher purpose is as different as chalk and cheese. For some it may take a little bit of digging in and soul searching in an attempt to establish what they were naturally drawn to in their first few years of life. For others, it’s as easy as swimming with a current. In a nutshell, it boils down to either childhood inclinations or what comes easy.
When I discovered I had a knack for writing, I was drawn to the universal laws of nature like a moth to a flame. I dug in deeper and was intrigued the more I delved into it. Owing to the fact that it is quite an uncommon topic that is not commonplace in everyday conversation and bears the markings of being too academic, I opted to use a different approach to disseminate the knowledge using live examples. The goal of using this approach was twofold the bottom line being to increase knowledge retention.
After writing for quite some time, I stumbled across the life path number information. I was initially skeptical about it but curiosity egged me on to calculate and establish my number. Calculating it is as easy as pie. What you do with the interpretation is entirely up to you and one can either drop it like a hot potato or run with it. Lo and behold, I was taken aback by the spot on accuracy. The interpretation of my life path number described me to a T. Given our analytical mindset, knowledge seeking and dissemination is the main motivator of my life path number. By the time I discovered this, I was knee deep into writing hence this is not a chicken or egg causality dilemma or is it?
Living in the land of the free and the home of the brave had its fair set of challenges. Sleep deprivation, harsh weather and long commute was among a myriad of challenges I had to contend with in pursuit of higher education. Sleep deprived driving was out of the question hence many a time I opted to while the time away in school before heading back to work in the evening for a double shift. Gym, shower, study and nap filled the eight-hour gap between jobs.
Shut eye barely lasted for over an hour. As an offshoot of spending more time in school, the professors I bumped into in the corridors thought I was a dedicated student. Little did they know that my hands were tied behind my back. My GPA went over the roof and remained consistently high to the end. There appeared to be an inverse relationship between the time I spent at home and my success at school. If my abode was closer to school and work, I would have possibly spent more time at home sleeping and doing what normal people did hence my grades would have suffered. At one point it got hard to ascertain if I was naturally motivated or was pushed by circumstances. A chicken or egg dilemma of sorts. Such is the complexity of life. One can seem driven but are they really?
In life there are false purposes that appeal to humans. Money and success is arguably one of such kind. Choosing a career solely based on the money tap can lead to a myriad of challenges not confined to boredom and lack of fulfillment. In this regard happiness can be fleeting as will be demonstrated shortly. Prior to the global financial crisis triggered by cheap credit and lax lending standards that fueled a housing price bubble, a friend had a high flying career in wall street. Financial jargon wore him down but he was drawn to the money. The role accorded him an opportunity to make money and sustain a lavish lifestyle. He stumbled onto the career by happenstance hence in as much as his body was there, his spirit was definitely elsewhere. Quite an unfortunate position to be in more so if retirement is decades away and not on the horizon.
He loved the outdoors, travelling and could barely sit still in one place for the entirety of the weekend. A little bird whispered in my ear and I passed the message on to him. Transport business over the weekend would accord him with an opportunity to see the great land, drop some consignment and make some small change. In as much as the Wall Street job ensured a steady stream of income, in the eventuality that the money tap ran dry for one reason or the other, he would have a fallback plan. He heeded to the call and never looked back. The rubber met the road shortly thereafter and by the time he lost his Wall Street job owing to the Global Financial Crisis, he had acquired three trucks. Purpose and passion intersected with a willing spirit. In conclusion, as Ellen DeGeneres said “Never follow anyone else’s path. Unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and see a path. Then by all means follow that path”.
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