Choose Purpose

In my post "Where do I want to live? What do I want to do?", I described having the experience of serving a purpose that I found meaningful and, for better or worse, how critical it is for me to need purpose to feel worthwhile.

Today I'm looking at this from a different angle... though the lens of choice.

I saw a bumper sticker on a vehicle today that said "Choose Happiness". I've seen this phrase before and I've generally dismissed it as new age rhetoric... but today it meant something different. Today it reminded me that the only way to be absolutely immune to the conditional nature of life's ups and downs is to have the ability to choose it... to choose immunity.  Life may suck at times... but I don't have to behave accordig to that reality.

This is not the same thing as having a "positive attitude"... because my experience of that tactic is that it's most definitely a form of delusion achieved by ignoring reality and nurturing a fantasy that is designed for self-protection. Conscious choice is different... it's about acknowledging and understanding reality... good or bad... and acting according to an intentional plan rather than just reacting via instinct. Instinct isn't inherently bad... it is a good thing so long as it aligns with what's needed... but if it doesn't, then it's not just neutrally unproductive... it's actively counterproductive, which makes it more than a showstopper... it's a threat.

Now... here is the point of this post... to translate the idea above on to what I said in my other post about my need for a purpose in order to feel worthwhile. The answer to this need is Choice. If I find myself without a purpose, it's not because life is not providing me with one... it's because I am not choosing one. If no obvious choice presents itself, then the process of finding one becomes the default choice. If this is the case, the question to ask is how am I approaching it... am I actively working on it or am I getting lost working in it? In one of my favorite resources, EMyth.com, the importance of this concept is the main focus ("How to Work On It While Working In It").

===

===