Defining Myself

What is my purpose?

My purpose is based on my beliefs--not only my beliefs in God, but a collections of beliefs I have pieced together as I have attempted to solve the mystery of my own existence.  This is what I believe.

I believe my purpose in life is a complicated one. Even I don’t know it.  I believe that I will never know it and that, in a paradoxical turn of events, our purpose in life is to end knowing, with deepest conviction, that we never had one in the first place other than to follow our hearts and love who we are.  After all, if we regret nothing, how can we say that our purpose was yet left unfulfilled? I believe our purpose in life is to be happy and do our best to make others happy along with us.  I believe nothing can stop us.  I believe some of us spend so much of our time searching for our purpose in the mud, we forget we can fly.  I believe ambition has nothing to do with age.  I believe 

your life does not start when you’re eighteen or twenty-five or thirty.  I believe your life starts when you want it to, and all the time before is spent with your eyes squeezed shut, perched on the edge but too afraid to leap.  I believe some people never do.

I believe I was born to travel the world.  I don’t want to stay in one place for my whole life, watching the same old life, like a song stuck on repeat.  I want to see what’s out there, to experience it--to eat new food, meet new people, and expect the unexpected.  I want to live without borders, to say I am a citizen of the world.  I want a suitcase instead of a closet; a train instead of a car.  I want to leave stories everywhere I go so that I will become a part of the memories of everyone I meet, all over the planet.  But most importantly, I want their stories to become mine.  I believe I was born to see it all, plus a bit more.  I believe my purpose is to explore.

I believe I was born to write.  I believe in the power of imagination, and of an idea planted in someone’s mind.  I believe the world is changed through words--the perfect words--words that would be able to convince a species that the time to change is now.  Although I don’t think I will be the one to have that honor, that will not stop me from pouring my thoughts onto a page and sharing my heart with the people around me.  I want to write about the things I see, the things I hear, and the things I love.  I want to blur the line between dreams and reality.  I believe my purpose is to create.

I believe I was born to experience.  Once my travels are over, I can see myself living in a large plantation house in the south, the quiet solitude giving me the other end of the social spectrum.  I want to experience beauty in simplicity, in sitting back and enjoying the silence. I believe in working hard for as long as it takes so you can follow your dreams without a second thought later on.  I believe in no shortcuts to success.  I firmly believe in seeing what you want and doing everything in your own power to get it.  If I fail and give up, it just wasn’t that important to me.  I believe anything’s possible.  So I’m going to try everything.  I believe my purpose is to live.

I believe I was born to share my joy.  Everyone’s trying to get through the same life we are, so it’s not fair for people who are a point ahead to sabotage those who seem to be lagging behind.  I want to make everyone’s life just as enjoyable as I’m determined to make mine.  I believe we’re equal and there’s nothing I want more in life than to be able to remember that at all times.  Sometimes there are too many stereotypes in the world.  I believe my purpose is to forget them.
Without these beliefs, my purpose means nothing.  What does it matter what I’m supposed to do, when I don’t even know what I want to do?  We must have a foundation to leap from, otherwise our feet will never leave the ground.  So I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, bend my knees, and prepare to enter the unknown.  And although I know my life won’t always turn out the way I want it to, I know I’ll be ready for it.  And I know that, in the end, I’ll still be in charge of the outcome.  This is what I believe.