In the midst of dusting off my resume and moving toward the next phase of my career, I have been thinking a lot about purpose, and just how hard it has been to figure out. A long time ago I read Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, and have been searching for my purpose ever since. I still don’t know my what it is. I’ve read at least 5-10 other books about purpose since then and they’re all great, but…
Then not too long ago I was either listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast, reading one of his blog posts, or perhaps it was reading his most recent book, Tools of Titans, when I came across this great quote:
Forget purpose. It’s okay to be happy without one. The quest for a single purpose has ruined many lives.
-James Altucher
Thanks James, I mean Mr. Altucher. That statement kind of freed me a little bit.
I also read a lot of other books about business, building a client list, how to be successful, yada, yada, yada…and they all talk about following your passion. If you look up passion in the dictionary you’ll see a picture of me listed as an antonym (that means the opposite for those of you who were snoozing through english class). Seriously. A friend and client of mine even nicknamed me “Flatline.” So following my passion never quite made sense to me – I didn’t really see my self as passionate about anything.
Then I was listening to another podcast and heard this gem:
Never follow your passion, but always bring it with you.
-Mike Rowe
Cool. I can definitely move forward without following a passion, but I know I come across things occasionally that get me fired up, and it’s good to know passion will be there when I need it. It’s in my car, but it’s not driving.
Then the other day I was simply going through some past journals and notebooks gathering quotes to type into Evernote for future blog posts, and I came across this last gem, that pretty much inspired this post:
Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of…I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust.
– Mother Theresa
I have never had clarity either, and I always thought something was wrong with me. It’s nice to know I’m in good company, now all I need to do is work on trust…something I have had to do a lot of in the past five years.