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The Joyner Perspective: Blog for Leaders View this email in your browser “In the dim background of our mind, we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start; the pensée de derrière la tête [thought at the back of the head] fails to pierce the shell of lethargy that wraps our state about. Every moment we expect the shell to break, for we know no reason why it should continue. But it does continue, pulse after pulse, and we float with it, until—also without reason that we can discover—an energy is given, something—we know not what—enables us to gather ourselves together, we wink our eyes, we shake our head, the background ideas become effective, and the wheels of life go round again.” ? William James, Psychology: The Briefer Course I don’t know my purpose. I’m lost in life. I need to find myself. I don’t know what I am supposed to be doing, or my passion, and I need something or someone to complete me. Sound familiar? It sounds like an intimate conversation that you are always having with yourself or that you hear your friends, family, and coworkers continually lamenting. This idea of seeking purpose is a question and eternal conflict that every year ends up leading millions of people to have lived unfulfilled lives, dying, never remotely having scratched the surface of achieving the full measure of their potential. They lived having played it safe, having a small, incomplete measure of happiness so unfulfilled because they were continually looking outward for an answer that lies inward. All the while they existed aimlessly and without intention through life, when the answer was there the entire time. Their solution stared them in the face in the existence and example of countless souls that they encounter each day. The answer is found in story after story of courageous individuals who changed the world by their intentional living, and their convictions and willingness to pay whatever cost necessary to live and carry out their purpose. The simple answer for the question which you are seeking about your purpose is this: your purpose is to serve humanity, and to serve wherever you are, with whatever you have, intentionally, to make your community better by holding yourself accountable to consistently give more to it than you ever take from it. Who knew, right? Now, you may have rolled your eyes and said “yeah, yeah” because you were hoping and looking for some definitive answer that was more of an action you could take to seek out some title, career, or place. You may be hoping to assuage your inner guilt so you could continue to make excuses and justify your actions thus far in the game. If you are, then right there is also the answer as to why you and so many others have lived such unfulfilled lives. I want to see you win; I want to see you live your full potential, and so I will not do that. My friend, if this applies to you, then you are living from your ego, your pain, your fears, the opinions of others, and the total of those anxieties that lead to a search for temporary emotional fixes to drown it all out and allow you to not think about it. It’s why no matter what, it’s never enough, the relationships, the title, the place you live, the hobby, the self-help book, the alcohol, and maybe even the drugs. After the initial high from all of it, you come right back to where you started. You blame everything: family life and upbringing, lack of money, the desire to be in a different place, relationships, jobs, and yet that still doesn’t suffice to give you any real understanding of why you feel incomplete or lost. Let me take this opportunity to offer you some essential information that you would do well to remember: you are responsible for what you chose to do or not do. You are responsible for whom you marry and are in a relationship with. You are responsible for every time you ran away from anything because of some overblown fear of the future, forgetting that all you can do is live in the now, and the future is shaped by what you do today. All these decisions add up to a very uneasy and fruitless life. Living from that fear and your ego has allowed you to build a life on a fragile foundation, and potentially your only justification is to live a lie. And every time you think that foolishness and you embrace that dangerous mindset, you undermine countless brave and courageous souls, the known and unsung heroes, whose lives and sacrifices are from which you and I benefit. Let me make it undoubtedly clear to you, the mandate for all of us, from the day we were born, is to serve humanity, and to do it in whatever way we consistently can to make our communities and our world tangibly better. We all struggle with this inner battle and war of the mind at some point, but many people sadly can’t overcome it and choose to live their lives from this self-defeating mindset. Understand that the universe exists to serve. The sun rises proudly from its rest each morning, and the moon nobly stands guard in the heavens each night for a purpose. The bees, the flowers that blossom, the tiniest insects to the most massive and most ferocious beasts—they all serve a purpose towards the life and existence of the other. The selfish mindset that unfortunately is the norm throughout our society is that your purpose is found in titles, materials, the person on your arm, the place you live. All of that serves a fool’s errand. No, you don’t have to know what career track you want to go down, and you can change it as many times as you see fit. No, you don’t have to know where you want to live, and yes you can go at your own pace related to those societal questions and manmade traditions. But, just as nature and the beasts of the earth, we all have a great purpose and existence bound in the service of one to another. As humans, acting with our extraordinary capacity to reason, we can accomplish and manage incredible feats. But, we will only find fulfillment when those acts are directed toward a nobler purpose that benefits humankind. Please understand, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, right now, you have a responsibility to be living your purpose intentionally to serve your community and to serve the people you say you love. How you tactically choose to execute that responsibility, from whatever title, place, or position you may hold in this life, should end in benefitting humanity and your society. This understanding should not only excite you, but motivate you! Positive energy feeds your heart, body, and soul; and, just like exercising your body, the more you do it, the more you condition yourself to feel powerful, balanced, focused, and whole. Everything you do, every position that you have, the city you live in, and the people that you love will then powerfully complement your existence and purpose, as they were meant to do. As St. Francis of Assisi made clear in his beautiful prayer, “It is in giving that we receive”. The most courageous thing you can do is live your life in service to others. That is the purpose and responsibility of us all, and it’s a noble calling to stand for something because, your very own existence, freedom, and luxury even to waste time “finding yourself and your purpose” was paid for, and is paid for every day, with the blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifices of countless courageous souls living intentionally. I invite you to take some quiet time, without distraction, maybe even over weeks and months to make it a priority to sit and center yourself. Be brutally honest with yourself and do a truthful audit of your actions and inactions over the past few months and years. What purpose has your life served? What makes you proud? Fight to hold yourself accountable to not hide from that nagging feeling in the back of your mind. This lets you know if you have been lying to yourself and making excuses for your lack of discipline and consistency. The most common lie people constantly repeat until it becomes a kind of mental slavery is the phrase “I don’t know”. You do know. You know so much more about yourself and the reasons why you do what you do than you will ever admit. You make a willing choice to be a co-conspirator in the death of your purpose, and you settle for an average existence and willingly submit to all the misery that comes with it. You reap what you sew, and it haunts you, and you cannot escape it. There is no excuse for the willingly weak and the willfully ignorant because that destructive behavior has a ripple effect of destruction across the globe. Let me say clearly to you, you are strong enough to face your fears, you are strong enough to run towards what scares you, and your life has great worth and meaning if you would be so bold as to tap into it. Learn from observing nature, no matter how bad the winter is, and the damage that ensues. Spring still comes, maybe later than before, but it comes. You only have one, short life to live, so I implore you to dare to be great and live your purpose, and BE a powerful, positive force for change that brings beauty to the lives of those you love. Help make your community and world tangibly and measurably better. Yes, my friend, right now, where you are, with what you have, be the love that you seek. Walk in courage and attempt to do what is hard, not what is easy. You can do this, no matter the road you have been down, no matter how many times you have fallen, you were worthy from the day you first opened your eyes and your life matters. I need you to live your purpose, and so does the world. It has been proven many times that one person can lead, and usher in long-lasting and cataclysmic change. Why exist and not dare to be celebrated as someone great? Why live and not be more than average? You have a gift that only you can uniquely provide and give. So, stand up, lift your head, remember who you are, and live your purpose, my friend. I’m rooting for you already! Keep hustling hard, keep fighting forward, and this is the chapter where you rise. Edited by Grace Cox, summer intern currently attending Auburn University Check out this throwback video on coalition building to help shape your purpose! Copyright © 2019 Joyner Media & Strategies, All rights reserved.
The Joyner Perspective: Blog for Leaders
View this email in your browser
“In the dim background of our mind, we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start; the pensée de derrière la tête [thought at the back of the head] fails to pierce the shell of lethargy that wraps our state about. Every moment we expect the shell to break, for we know no reason why it should continue. But it does continue, pulse after pulse, and we float with it, until—also without reason that we can discover—an energy is given, something—we know not what—enables us to gather ourselves together, we wink our eyes, we shake our head, the background ideas become effective, and the wheels of life go round again.” ? William James, Psychology: The Briefer Course I don’t know my purpose. I’m lost in life. I need to find myself. I don’t know what I am supposed to be doing, or my passion, and I need something or someone to complete me. Sound familiar? It sounds like an intimate conversation that you are always having with yourself or that you hear your friends, family, and coworkers continually lamenting. This idea of seeking purpose is a question and eternal conflict that every year ends up leading millions of people to have lived unfulfilled lives, dying, never remotely having scratched the surface of achieving the full measure of their potential. They lived having played it safe, having a small, incomplete measure of happiness so unfulfilled because they were continually looking outward for an answer that lies inward. All the while they existed aimlessly and without intention through life, when the answer was there the entire time. Their solution stared them in the face in the existence and example of countless souls that they encounter each day. The answer is found in story after story of courageous individuals who changed the world by their intentional living, and their convictions and willingness to pay whatever cost necessary to live and carry out their purpose. The simple answer for the question which you are seeking about your purpose is this: your purpose is to serve humanity, and to serve wherever you are, with whatever you have, intentionally, to make your community better by holding yourself accountable to consistently give more to it than you ever take from it. Who knew, right? Now, you may have rolled your eyes and said “yeah, yeah” because you were hoping and looking for some definitive answer that was more of an action you could take to seek out some title, career, or place. You may be hoping to assuage your inner guilt so you could continue to make excuses and justify your actions thus far in the game. If you are, then right there is also the answer as to why you and so many others have lived such unfulfilled lives. I want to see you win; I want to see you live your full potential, and so I will not do that. My friend, if this applies to you, then you are living from your ego, your pain, your fears, the opinions of others, and the total of those anxieties that lead to a search for temporary emotional fixes to drown it all out and allow you to not think about it. It’s why no matter what, it’s never enough, the relationships, the title, the place you live, the hobby, the self-help book, the alcohol, and maybe even the drugs. After the initial high from all of it, you come right back to where you started. You blame everything: family life and upbringing, lack of money, the desire to be in a different place, relationships, jobs, and yet that still doesn’t suffice to give you any real understanding of why you feel incomplete or lost. Let me take this opportunity to offer you some essential information that you would do well to remember: you are responsible for what you chose to do or not do. You are responsible for whom you marry and are in a relationship with. You are responsible for every time you ran away from anything because of some overblown fear of the future, forgetting that all you can do is live in the now, and the future is shaped by what you do today. All these decisions add up to a very uneasy and fruitless life. Living from that fear and your ego has allowed you to build a life on a fragile foundation, and potentially your only justification is to live a lie. And every time you think that foolishness and you embrace that dangerous mindset, you undermine countless brave and courageous souls, the known and unsung heroes, whose lives and sacrifices are from which you and I benefit. Let me make it undoubtedly clear to you, the mandate for all of us, from the day we were born, is to serve humanity, and to do it in whatever way we consistently can to make our communities and our world tangibly better. We all struggle with this inner battle and war of the mind at some point, but many people sadly can’t overcome it and choose to live their lives from this self-defeating mindset. Understand that the universe exists to serve. The sun rises proudly from its rest each morning, and the moon nobly stands guard in the heavens each night for a purpose. The bees, the flowers that blossom, the tiniest insects to the most massive and most ferocious beasts—they all serve a purpose towards the life and existence of the other. The selfish mindset that unfortunately is the norm throughout our society is that your purpose is found in titles, materials, the person on your arm, the place you live. All of that serves a fool’s errand. No, you don’t have to know what career track you want to go down, and you can change it as many times as you see fit. No, you don’t have to know where you want to live, and yes you can go at your own pace related to those societal questions and manmade traditions. But, just as nature and the beasts of the earth, we all have a great purpose and existence bound in the service of one to another. As humans, acting with our extraordinary capacity to reason, we can accomplish and manage incredible feats. But, we will only find fulfillment when those acts are directed toward a nobler purpose that benefits humankind. Please understand, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, right now, you have a responsibility to be living your purpose intentionally to serve your community and to serve the people you say you love. How you tactically choose to execute that responsibility, from whatever title, place, or position you may hold in this life, should end in benefitting humanity and your society. This understanding should not only excite you, but motivate you! Positive energy feeds your heart, body, and soul; and, just like exercising your body, the more you do it, the more you condition yourself to feel powerful, balanced, focused, and whole. Everything you do, every position that you have, the city you live in, and the people that you love will then powerfully complement your existence and purpose, as they were meant to do. As St. Francis of Assisi made clear in his beautiful prayer, “It is in giving that we receive”. The most courageous thing you can do is live your life in service to others. That is the purpose and responsibility of us all, and it’s a noble calling to stand for something because, your very own existence, freedom, and luxury even to waste time “finding yourself and your purpose” was paid for, and is paid for every day, with the blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifices of countless courageous souls living intentionally. I invite you to take some quiet time, without distraction, maybe even over weeks and months to make it a priority to sit and center yourself. Be brutally honest with yourself and do a truthful audit of your actions and inactions over the past few months and years. What purpose has your life served? What makes you proud? Fight to hold yourself accountable to not hide from that nagging feeling in the back of your mind. This lets you know if you have been lying to yourself and making excuses for your lack of discipline and consistency. The most common lie people constantly repeat until it becomes a kind of mental slavery is the phrase “I don’t know”. You do know. You know so much more about yourself and the reasons why you do what you do than you will ever admit. You make a willing choice to be a co-conspirator in the death of your purpose, and you settle for an average existence and willingly submit to all the misery that comes with it. You reap what you sew, and it haunts you, and you cannot escape it. There is no excuse for the willingly weak and the willfully ignorant because that destructive behavior has a ripple effect of destruction across the globe. Let me say clearly to you, you are strong enough to face your fears, you are strong enough to run towards what scares you, and your life has great worth and meaning if you would be so bold as to tap into it. Learn from observing nature, no matter how bad the winter is, and the damage that ensues. Spring still comes, maybe later than before, but it comes. You only have one, short life to live, so I implore you to dare to be great and live your purpose, and BE a powerful, positive force for change that brings beauty to the lives of those you love. Help make your community and world tangibly and measurably better. Yes, my friend, right now, where you are, with what you have, be the love that you seek. Walk in courage and attempt to do what is hard, not what is easy. You can do this, no matter the road you have been down, no matter how many times you have fallen, you were worthy from the day you first opened your eyes and your life matters. I need you to live your purpose, and so does the world. It has been proven many times that one person can lead, and usher in long-lasting and cataclysmic change. Why exist and not dare to be celebrated as someone great? Why live and not be more than average? You have a gift that only you can uniquely provide and give. So, stand up, lift your head, remember who you are, and live your purpose, my friend. I’m rooting for you already! Keep hustling hard, keep fighting forward, and this is the chapter where you rise. Edited by Grace Cox, summer intern currently attending Auburn University
Check out this throwback video on coalition building to help shape your purpose!
Copyright © 2019 Joyner Media & Strategies, All rights reserved.