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I created this blog several years ago to help others with their aging, diabetes and overall health. I often wonder if I am really reaching anyone in this process. This thought keeps coming back to me and making me think about my purpose in doing this. These thoughts make me think more about my life in general and gets me thinking about my purpose in life.
As we think about our purpose in life we can go many different directions. There are a lot of people that will swing this conversation towards a religious purpose. But that is not what I am taking about. This is about what do you do with your life everyday? What is your work and are you finding meaning in your work? Do you find meaning in just living and not in some religious contex. I believe many people use religious as a means to fill the need of purpose and if that’s the case then that is fine. Mine happens to be more around the thought of whether I can help others in my work and daily life to bring them success and to find their own meaning.
I have always loved mentoring people in the business world and I think I do a pretty good job of it. I have promoted many people in my career. I like to think I have a calm personality that promotes people to open up and grow. This seems to work well in the business world, but when I get talking to people about their health they immediately seem to decide that they are not capable of doing the work needed to overcome their own health issues. Not sure why I don’t seem to have the same influence in this area as I do in a work area? What I have determined is that people look at work and career as their major driving force to achieve something. Often times this achievement has a monetary value. But in the health and wellbeing area, it may cost you some money and the return is only internal.
So today I am searching for the way to get people to see that their own health and wellbeing needs to be more of a priority than money, status or career. Without our health then nothing else really matters. Too often I see people that only look to improve their health after they have a health scare or some disease, I am the perfect example of that. It took me being diagnosed with diabetes before I started to get my health in line, and it is still hard today.
This brings me back to purpose or your meaning. I guess I want my purpose to benefit others, but am I being nieve that I can do this? I hope not. I think for me, I know I have a purpose in my career, and I have personal goals that drive me internally, that gives me a sense of purpose in my life in general. I just have to keep pushing, that the purpose of helping others on their health journey is still a good path.
Have you ever thought about your purpose in life? Does your life bring you a sense of accomplishment? Viktor Frankl was a physiatrist and a Holocaust survivor that wrote many books after his time in the camps. One of his big findings in the camps was how the people mentally dealt with the horrible circumstance of their existence in these camps. He found that the people that held onto some sort of purpose in their lives survived longer than those that gave up. One of his quotes that I like is “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance, to choose one’s way”.
I will leave you with this today. In your personal journey, do you have a purpose? Does living a healthy lifestyle fall into this purpose? Because if we don’t take care of ourselves, our physical and mental health, nothing else may really matters.
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