A Life of Purpose and a Reason to Live

When I was about ten years old, I got lost!
My Father did not send out a search party and my Mother did not call the police. I had not wondered into the woods by myself, nor had I run away from home. Actually I was at home. I was in a room in my own house. But I was lost.
My Father was a hobby photographer. He liked to take pictures, but he also liked to process the film and produce his own black and white prints. To do this he had to have a dark room. In that dark room I experienced the most intense condition of darkness ever. There wasn’t a glimmer of light while Dad was processing his films. The darkness was absolute.
The day I got lost, my sister and I were in the room with him. He was busy doing his pictures, and after a while we got bored and wanted out. My sister tried to find the door but couldn’t. She started to cry, so I tried to find the door to let her out. As I began to grope for the door in that awful darkness, I realized that I had no idea where I was. I was completely disoriented. For a moment I panicked and cried to my father, “Let me out Dad, I am lost.” Then both my sister and I started crying.
After a few minutes Dad turned on the light, and suddenly everything changed. There was the door. There were the windows. My sister and I were glad to escape from what for a moment had been a very distressing experience for us. It is not nice being lost.
The memory of that experience has come back to me many times during my life. During my teen-age years, I often felt fearful and apprehensive about the future. I felt as if I was in Dad’s dark room again, and I had no idea where the door to the solution to my problems was. Unfortunately, because of teenage pride and selfishness I didn’t call out to Dad or Mom for help. In any case I felt they wouldn’t understand.
So I struggled through the best I could. Later on in adulthood, I found myself again in the dark room, without a clear path, still looking for the “door.” What door? The door to happiness and peace of mind. Life seemed so confusing and at times pointless. Surely there was more to it than my boring job and small pay. Surely there was more than the daily grind and constant disappointments.
It took me a while to find the “door”, but eventually I did. You see, “The purpose of life . . . . is a life of purpose.” Let me say that again with a little more emphasis, “the purpose of life . . . . is a life of purpose”. Yes, without a purpose you are going to feel lost. And feeling lost means frustration, anger and hopelessness. This could lead to despair and disaster. But it doesn’t need to be. There is a way out. You can switch the light on and open the door. “The purpose of life . . . is a life of Purpose.”
When you find your Purpose the mind becomes focused, creative ideas begin to flow and you become consumed with the activities of the Purpose. Time is not a factor anymore and sometimes hours go by, seeming like mere minutes. When we find our Purpose we don’t think of energy expended, as work. We never talk of our Purpose as a job. We say, “I have a JOY”, and we would work for free (of course if someone else would pay our bills). Work becomes a joy, and time goes by too fast. At last we have something that gets us up in the morning, puts a spring in our step and a smile on our face. “I’m just fine”, you respond to your co-worker as she passes by, and you send her along with a cheerful “Have a nice day.”

Chapter 3 of my book “Life One-0-One: Find your Purpose” explains in detail the method I used to arrive at my life’s purpose. I am prepared to give you this chapter at no cost or obligation just for the asking. Just e-mail me at vhdacosta@rogers.com and start finding you life’s purpose.

Excerpt from “Life One-0-One: Find your Purpose”
by Vince DaCosta

You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZH0OmqyIyI