Tag: passion

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A Brief Reflection on Clarity, Purpose and Passion

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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.

 

 

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Single Life: A Blessing (not a curse!)

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SingleLife badge

SingleLife (TM)

I am currently writing a book on living single and the unique blessings that come to us through living the single life and that come through us to others through the way we approach and live out the single life.

As a visually-oriented person who has always been fascinated by typography and text based logos, I was playing around with different thoughts, words, phrases and fonts related to this theme of singleness, and I eventually stumbled upon the image you see here.  I am hoping that this, or some improved version, might become a badge of honor at some point for those of us who choose to boldly embrace the single life.

To describe in summary what I believe are the blessings of the single life, I have chosen to lay them out in the vein of one of my favorite movies, Fight Club, as the Rules of SingleLife:

  1. SingleLife is not LonelyLife
  2. SingleLife is about intentional community
  3. SingleLife is freedom to pursue deeper relationship with God
  4. SingleLife is freedom to take action in pursuit of justice
  5. SingleLife is accepting a unique call to do “Awesome”

Of course, there are no real rules to the single life, but I hope these serve as a guideline for starting to live a SingleLife with purpose and meaning.  These “rules” will hopefully be improved upon over time and I intend to talk about each more specifically over time (and in much more detail in the book).

There is no curse in being single – your family is wherever and with whomever you create community.  My hope is that your community not only includes other people but also a deep relationship with God that gives hope, freedom and a passion for justice.

Please leave feedback on any of this – whether you have additional “rules” to add, you love/hate the badge image, you think I’m just another crazy single person trying to compensate for [fill in the blank], etc.   I love being single, and am constantly striving to live the SingleLife the way the apostle Paul advocated (I said “striving to” – I am nowhere near there yet) in his letter to the Corinthians:

I wish that all were as I myself am.  But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am.
(1 Corinthians 7:7-8)

Join me on this journey of living the SingleLife with purpose!

 

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There is no Security

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“Remember the words of General Douglas MacArthur: ‘There is no security on this earth.  There is only opportunity.’  Empty your days of the search for security; fill them with a passion for service.  Empty your hours of the ambition for recognition; fill them with the aspiration for achievement.  Empty your moments of the need for entertainment; fill them with the quest for creativity.”

-William Arthur Word
(as quoted in John Maxwell’s “The Winning Attitude.”)