Then, what exactly is the point of life?
The answer was so plain and simple, I remember stopping in my barefoot tracks and smiling as I turned to look out at the sea through the wind whipping my bangs and ponytail.
Our purpose is to live in harmony with nature.
Really? That’s it? I might have even said out loud. Then, what am I so distressed about?
The first time I truly posed that question to the universe was on a personal retreat to the Oregon coast after I was laid off from my “dream job.” I had just turned 28 years old. I had completed graduate school a year before, for exactly this type of job, based on the talents and skills I had thoroughly evaluated, and thus invested in. I thought I was following my calling and I felt like I had completely failed.
The HR person was right. There was a “lack of fit” — not just at that company, but in my life. My greatest failure back then was misalignment.
Since then, I’ve studied many books about finding your calling (here’s a list of my favorites) to figure it out. And, boy was I wrong.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the mind-blowing idea that Richard Nelson Bolles humbly tucked into the Epilogue of his classic job-hunting book, What Color is Your Parachute?. Here he describes our three missions in life in great detail. Wait, there’s not just one?!
He instructed readers to translate his Christian thought forms into their own. So, in my words, our three missions in life are:
- Live in harmony with nature,
- Live in harmony with other humans,
- Live in harmony with our own nature.
Most of us, myself included, easily spend most of life doing it backwards: self first, then others, then nature (which is synonymous with “something greater” or “God” for me). I mean, it just sounds backwards, doesn’t it?
Greater, others, self.
Completing these missions—in that order—takes a lifetime of effort. Not just during one Sabbatical.
Easier said than done, for sure.
As I head back out on the trails in a few days, I’ll be attuning even more to the world around me to find my connection to everything that feeds my compassion for others and fuels my soul. Alignment starts from the center.
May you embrace the greater, others and yourself this week.
Love,
Jules
P.S. Listen to “A Missional Life: Your Calling” podcast episode for Suzy Silk’s reassuring pep talk about how far you’ve already come.
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