Find my purpose in life

And falling behind. I’ve quit more than I’ve started lately and that concerns me. I’ve always had difficulty with the idea of quitting because it’s usually associated with failure. I envy those people that know what they’re supposed to be when they grow up and spend their whole lives doing that. That’s not me. Not yet any way. Maybe never. And I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or not. How do you get any where if you don’t know where you want to go? Do you actually need to get any where or is that a myth? A push tied to the Puritan work ethic that the Pilgrims brought over with them on the Mayflower? I just wonder and that’s part of me isn’t it? The searching part, like Don Quixote, always chasing my windmills…

Occasionally it helps to reevaluate things in your life. Because things change, you have new experiences, you meet new people. So today, I re-took the 43 things quiz:
You are a Self-Knowing Healthy Reinventer
0.53% of the 73949 people who have taken this quiz are like you.

That means about 392 people have done some of the same things I have.

I did a few new things since I last took the quiz. I befriended a stranger, I made a foreign friend. There are other things too but not on this quiz.

It’s good to have a way to reevaluate your life. You usually find a lot of good things you might have otherwise overlooked.

I went 8 years since I last read the Dune Series, the entire length of my relationship with my Ex. It is my favorite series. Was that one of the flaws in our relationship, that I lost important parts of me?

I have flaws. I have a lot of them. I used to hate that. I struggled to be the best at everything. To be everything to everyone. If I wasn’t perfect at something, I hated myself for it. I wanted to be a stunning figure skater, a brilliant computer programmer, a fabulous fashion designer, among other things. I ran up against my own limits without understanding that we all have things we are good at and things we aren’t. I have zero sense of rhythm so for as much as I love skating, I couldn’t skate a routine in time with the music. I struggle with math so regardless of how logical my computer programs were, they still lacked because I couldn’t do the necessary math. I have difficulty seeing the possibilities beyond the reality so I never found the inspiration to design great clothes.

It’s taken me years to understand this one simple thing: flaws are better. They make you interesting. That I didn’t do those things perfectly doesn’t make me less of a person. It makes me more of one. It gives me empathy for others. Because mostly, we aren’t brilliant at our lives. We are mundane. We go thru our lives the way we are told we should. We graduate from high school, go to college, get a job, get married, have children, grow old without really thinking about it. Most of us can deal with this. It’s enough. Some of us can’t though. We search for more.

I used to think this was a miserable fate, to be boring, to be just like everyone else, to not be special. What I’ve found over and over again is my life is that most people are just that and they still manage to create beautiful things. They still inspire one another. They still seem amazing to others regardless of how they see themselves.

I like my flaws. I surround myself with others who see value in my flaws. Thus I create strength and value in myself and others.

When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful. ~ Barbara Bloom

As I have grown healthier in these last months, I have looked back at my life. It’s odd that all the pieces are the same but the feelings I associate it with those pieces have changed. It reminds me of a kaleidoscope. The way you rotate it against the light changes the images you see even though nothing inside the kaleidoscope has changed. Your actions and thoughts define your world. Change your thoughts and actions and change your world. So, if you don’t like the image you see when you look thru your kaleidoscope, turn it just a bit and look again. And if you do like the image in your kaleidoscope, don’t be afraid to turn it again and find another beautiful, stunning, remarkable image waiting for you.

My Ex was a bastard today. My Ex took all the insecurities I had ever shared throughout our relationship and ripped me with them. Ripped into all the tender pieces of my soul. All the doubts I’ve ever had about not being normal, about failing over and over, about the end of our relationship. I have always struggled with these insecurities. With the fact that I have upended and destroyed so much of my life. I have had multiple careers. I have been lost about what to do with my life. I’m still lost about it. How do we consider ourselves normal when there’s no such thing as normal? How do we chart the course of our lives when we’ve never traveled these seas before? How do we deal with the new failures while still bleeding from the old ones? How do we love again when we doubt we can love at all? How do we have faith again when we willing gave it up? I thank the gods that I have friends that believe in my goodness, that make me feel amazing, that show me over and over again that the answers to those questions I listed above are just to keep living, keep doing, keep trusting, keep loving, keep believing. I am blessed.

Follow Up: http://greatday.com/motivate/081022.html

It’s amazing to browse this site and see the commanalities of people posting here. 5,239 people want to be a better friend. 16,063 people want to get married. 19,455 people want to be happy. 22,038 people want to fall in love. 32,420 people want to lose weight. What does this say about us as a society?

Butterfly effect… Everytime one person interacts with another (or refrains from doing so), each person is changed in some small or profound way. I once met some one who showed me an entirely unknown part of me. Other people had tried to show me but never managed to convey it. Now my life is totally different, profoundly changed. Where would I have been without that? Less conflicted in life? More so?

I gave some one a book once. He’s totally smart and well read and said no one had ever given him a book before. Does that change him profoundly or just a minor adjustment?

How does my presence affect those around me? Do I better my environment? I spend long coffee breaks distracting my best friend from his work and making him laugh. I challenge him to continue working out even when work is too busy just by reminding him that I work out. I send him e-mails he never replies to.

What do we as people owe those around us? The golden rule certainly applies. Treat people like you’d like to be treated. Not how you’ve been treated. Not how you feel like treating them.

There is a very wise quote on success: To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

I like this quote and think that it is good way to live life.

Stereotypes… Prince Charming… Happily ever after… We are so wrapped up in what society tells us is good and how we should live our lives, but really, how should we live our lives? Is more than one love really a bad thing? What is right for me? Is that the same as it is for you? Who can actually say? I have no right to judge another’s life. I haven’t those experiences; I can never really understand. So no one else can judge my life. Ergo, shouldn’t I find what works best for me? Or should I be miserable for everyone else’s convenience?