Facing Your Fears

I have spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out what my purpose in life is. I know that is kind of a cliche statement. Doing a Google search for the phrase "discover your life purpose," I found there were 56,400,000 results.

To give a little perspective, Google reports that there are 40,000 searches per second or 3.5 billion searches per day. At a rate of 40,000 searches per second, it would take 23.5 minutes for those Google searches for the term "discover your life purpose."

Within the past week, there are 94 pages of Google results for articles with the phrase "life purpose" in the title. You can find articles on sites from Success Magazine, Under 30 CEO, Youtube videos, Facebook groups and articles by others like me who are simply interested in the subject. All within the past week.

In another view, Amazon lists 199,864 books on the subject of life purpose. On the much more general term "self-help," Amazon lists 397,671 books. In other words, based on the search alone half of the self-help books on Amazon deal with your life purpose.

Clearly, a lot of people are searching--and writing--about life purpose.

Yet, most of the people I talk to struggle mightily to express what their life purpose is. To be honest, most people I ask don't have any idea what their life purpose is let alone being able to verbalize what it is.

As I've said elsewhere a lot of us can talk about life and purpose in a general sense. Most of us would agree that life is about being happy, about doing good, about helping others, etc. As Stephen Covey put it, "to learn, to love, to leave a legacy."

Yet, you start digging any depth below these generalities and you get a lot of bewildered looks.

My Purpose

I have spent much of the past two years trying to discover and articulate what my purpose is. I think I have distilled my purpose down to the point where I know that it is about helping others live their lives more abundantly. For me, that is what life is really about in general.

Given the fact that so few people can articulate their own life purpose, I have to wonder if all those articles and books that have been written provide any clarity for those seeking it.

What I am really concerned about, and have been stymied by, is much more personal for me. Do I have anything unique or insightful to share about living life more abundantly. With all the competition and resources that are out there already, do I stand a chance of being able make a difference.

To be honest, I am a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of helping others recognize their purpose and to be empowered to pursue it. If I, who has spent the time to figure out my purpose and how to share it, get stymied by the prospect of the task, how can I help others live life more abundantly.

I have as Joseph Campbell alludes to been afraid to enter the cave where my treasure lies because I am afraid of what else I may find in there. Am I up to the task?

Do I dare enter the cave?

Completing a post on my quotes website about taking chances, I came across many motivational sayings. Of those, I find a quote by Jack Canfield appropriate, "Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try."

With that in mind, I am reminded of the parable about a man who was walking along a beach after a storm. On the beach, were thousands of starfish. The young man scurried about the beach throwing starfish back into the ocean. Another man approached him asked what the young man was doing.

The young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one.”

I may not be able to make all the difference that the world needs, but perhaps I can make a difference to one here and one there. If nothing else, I can at least try.