“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
I’m sure most can relate to the fact that life is busy. Very busy! TOO busy!! I’ll never forget speaking to a client originally from Central America. She was relating how exhausted she was and how hard she was working and she made the comment, “American life is so demanding.” This simple statement said so much more than it appeared and it resonated so deeply. Without leaving the United States one might never realize how different we are. We have taken many things for granted, both the good and bad. We are privileged, yes and we are damned as well.
Without digressing too much my point is this. Do you remember hearing time and time again, if you do what you love then you’ll never have to go to work a day in your life? Personally, I’ve been going to WORK for nearly 30 years. College educated, I have had opportunity, but I had never found professional happiness. Only the truly blessed stop going to work after college and start pursuing their purpose.
Having spent my career following the pursuits of others and being offered opportunities in virtually every field I chose, their was still no satisfaction. I set foot across Spain, danced among His Holiness in India, foraged among the desolate of Guatemala and traveled Coast to Coast. It wasn’t until I stepped outside of myself for yet another moment and looked at what I had become. A stubborn man, still bouncing, still wandering and still searching. The difference this time was more profound. I had spent a year in daily meditation asking for what I didn’t know but simply asking, asking for purpose. When finally I recognized that this life and its expectation was not going to be delivered to my doorstep by Amazon, I thought it best time to get my footing and start forging.
I sat in my favorite room in the back of the house. Two walls of windows, a wall of my artwork and doors leading out, My vantage out across the back yard was of my garden, the chicken coop… and suddenly it struck me. It is the outdoors that draws me. Go figure, it is nature that attracts me… it is the call of the Earth that entices me. It is when I’m working in the yard that time slips away. It is hours of grueling sweat, soar muscles and splinters that go unrecognized as work at all. But who can make a living as a gardener?!
As I sat there that day, I said to myself that it is “out there” that my satisfaction lays. And with a little brainstorming, The Garden Peddler was created. I have pushed its development and now I will follow its lead. Once I tuned myself in and asked the right question, there was no way not to receive the answer. As a person, in general, I do not force my opinions upon anyone. I do not over-extend my views, but now I have a voice. I’ve always had perspective, but now I have found purpose.
I know with certainty, I have chosen a path that is being laid out before me. The path is happiness. The path is virtue. The pursuit is pure and the Purpose was always there.
Answered any of your own questions lately?
