My Purpose Found Me And I Didn't Know I Was Looking

by Darrell
(United States)

(Editor's note: The two pages noted in the following reader response can be found in the links just below this paragraph.)

>What Is Your Purpose

>How To Find Your Purpose

"After reading your two pages about finding purpose, I decided to share something I witnessed recently. It kind of fits the subject of those two pages.

I saw this very young collection of people standing out in the cold collecting donations using a pretty clever method. It seemed like something worth checking out so I asked what was going on with them. They were doing this work to help two small groups who provided food for as many people who were short on funds as they were able to supply.

Maybe I was just blissfully ignorant or maybe a little lazy, but I didn't have a solitary clue how big the need was in this area. I've lived here for years and it seemed as though most people were getting along fairly well.

That was before I was educated by the adult mentors of this young collection of people. They showed me the statistics and then went a step farther. They asked if I wanted to see first hand.

Your words about just throwing some money at the problem because it was a minimal effort rang through my head as I reached for my wallet to do the same. I wasn't really interested in getting too deep into this cause.

I'm not sure what it was, but something kept me in the area, just watching the large crowd of people come up to add in their donations. Something compelled me to go back and ask some more questions.

It turns out this young collection of people started this thing up on their own with a little bit of input from those adult mentors. They came up with this clever idea, they arranged the work details, they lined up the recipients of the collection. It turns out that this was just one of their ideas.

I also found out that they were stonewalled by some "officials" whose job description would seem to line up exactly with what they were doing. But they were doing it too well and creating too much excitement for the cause. Because of this, they were blocked from some facility usage and their job was made more difficult.

I didn't understand the reasoning behind those roadblocks and still don't have a clear answer, but my guess is that ego was involved.

I would have probably quit or got mad and argued. They did neither. They just adapted and found another way. They knew what their purpose was and didn't let life situations distract them from that purpose.

Before, I wasn't interested in getting in too deep. Now the purpose of this young collection of brave people is evolving into my purpose. As you wrote in one page, sometimes we find our purpose and sometimes our purpose finds us. My purpose found me when I didn't even know I was looking.

How about that?"

Something to Think About

"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily."

Zig Ziglar