In having dialogues with many people about the life purpose exercise, I decided to post my personal version. This took about 20 minutes. I started listing a bunch of stuff that meant something to me…stuff that I could feel good about being committed to. Then I started combining and re-arranging. And yes, it made me cry.
Peas! ab
There have been a few people that posted on FB or other places about this exercise. I highly recommend doing it. My version sounds a little to wordy, but for me, every single word has tons of meaning.
From Nov 2010: My purpose is to share what makes life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness possible by always looking at everyone and everything as connected in some way and worthy of love with honor for our human condition and with a focus on balance.
photo credit: Clearly Ambiguous
While I haven’t done holiday cards, for the past 6 or so New Years I’ve written a letter to “the world” (well, really friends and family) as a heartfelt and sincere wish in the New Year. The wish is a personal reflection on the past year…to look back and see what I needed to experience from life…and to wish that others benefit in some way from that. (Note: Pics are all taken by yours truly in 2011…titles: sunrise, clouds, moonlight)
“Know thyself” is a famous quote that is credited to numerous Greek sages as well as carved into the Temple at Delphi. To extend that, I’d like to extend a wish to everyone: that you how to find your peaceful self.
A peaceful self is not typical. Most of us are so busy that we don’t have time to stop thinking. Our brains are constantly “on,” constantly learning, evaluating, working, comparing, planning, feeling, reacting, responding, and more. The news, email, voicemail, online, traffic, and more bombards us. Good things happen and we become ecstatic…bad things happen and we are upset. Every day, people around us love us and hurt us, people are thankful and then complain, people pick us up and let us down, people act greedy and giving, people act self-centered and compassionate. Our brains process these interactions all day long…we process emotions along with our beliefs and values…these are often processed without us noticing what is happening. We even lose sleep at times because so much is on our mind.
What I wish for you in 2011 is that you know how to find inner peace in the face of any type of stress…anxiety, fear, worry, doubt, and any similar experience. Everyone goes through life and experience times of good and bad, life and death, creativity and destruction, love and war…the pendulum swings, the waves come and go, and change is constant. We have limited control over many things that happen in life…but we can manage how we think about life. And, the beauty of being human is that we all have this in common.
What I wish for you in 2011 is knowing your path to inner peace. Learning how to conjure inner peace has been a true blessing for me in 2010, and I wish this for you in 2011.
I am grateful and joyful for every person that I had the opportunity to interact with in 2010, thank you for being you and experiencing life with me.
Peace!
ab
good friends and good food is a blessing!
“Inside of me there are 2 dogs. 1 dog is evil. The other is good. The dogs fight all the time. Which dog wins? The one I feed the most.”
there is beauty in overcoming a personal challenge, it may be one of the most beautiful things on this planet.
- adambloom, betalkaboutable.com
photo credit: bobcat rock
awesome article: http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/other-emotions/fear.htm #leadership #motivation #success
photo credit: williamcho
we all get addicted to things, call it our behavior. it can be very hard to pay attention to. the difference is creation or destruction.
http://bit.ly/9aP9ma @RAILSCONF w/ @hashrocket + @workbeast. Hear @rabble tell how VC backed out of Twitter! Also on hashrocket.tv @obie
Happy New Year 2012
Dear Friends, Family, and Colleagues,
For 2012, I wish you perspective.
Perspective is something that I’ve learned a great deal about this year. It is amazing how two people can see, hear, taste, or experience the same thing and still have a different perspective. The fact is, we are all human and allowed our own experience and perspective, it is our right to do so (at least in this country). We have the freedom to experience life our own way, and we even get to chose how we want to experience it.
For me, 2011 was about facing new chapters of both life and death. There were multiple times that a new part of my life opened up, and I needed a new perspective (for example, I started two businesses this year). Many people helped me see that “even though ‘new’ could be scary, it didn’t have to be bad.” And, I am grateful for learning to cultivate a positive perspective. As well, I saw the threat of death first-hand on multiple occasions…and your perspective on life changes in that moment…when you know life could be gone tomorrow. Again, several people helped me see that difficult experiences can change you forever in a moment…and for the better. I am also grateful for this perspective. We all go through good and bad times…every human gets hit with joys and sorrows, pleasures and pains, times of celebration and mourning…we all share this in life…and we all get to choose how we perceive our life.
Sometimes we sit in traffic, go out with friends, work at our jobs, play with our kids, spend time with family, and we complain! Or, we are hurt, we are inconvenienced, we are in pain, we don’t like what happened to us, and we have a negative perspective about life’s experience. In the big picture, even most negative life experiences are not that big of a deal. Any one of us could be gone tomorrow…and…one day…every one of us will be gone. When you compare what you are negative or complaining about to death…most things stop being a big deal. Hmmm, funny how that is.
So, I do not wish you a perspective that includes “normal habits of complaining” or a perspective of negative energy – this is the perspective of an “ordinary life.” What I wish for you is an EXTRA-ordinary life…a life where you VALUE every single thing that you have, every friend that you make, every breath that you take, every good experience, AND every BAD experience. This is a perspective of extreme personal power – when you see every aspect of life as a gift that you get to experience. This is my wish for you, that you make this type of perspective a part of your daily way of living.
There really is nothing like the perspective of appreciating every single thing that happens to you in life. For the majority of this year, I did an experiment called “365 Days of Thankfulness” where I posted daily (or tried to ;- ) about things I am thankful for. The amount energy, positive energy, and joy that comes from a practice like this is absolutely profound, and I encourage anyone to post to this 365 page on a daily basis (or start your own). It is not easy to do this on a daily basis…but one of the coolest things is that you start to run out of “big things” to be thankful for…and you start to give thanks for smaller things…and this is when the magic happens!
Happy 2012 New Year’s Everyone – I hope your perspective on 2012 is amazing!
With Love, Light, and Peace to You!
Adam