You were born with a purpose mapped out for your life, your experiences, good or bad, prepare you for for that purpose. Your purpose will impact someone, or a multitude of someones, but yet you have to make it happen, you have to live your life to the fullest to experience that purpose. Too many people are not "living" there life, they're just living. Think "rock". A rock's purpose is to hold something down, to suppress something, to stay in one place. On the other hand, we as humans, were given arms, legs, brains, hearts, and lungs so that we would not be rocks. Don't live your life like a rock!
There is another group of people who aren't just sitting around, no this group of individuals has given up on life and the life they were originally created to live and the purpose they were destined to fulfill. In Viktor Frankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning", Frankl who was a Holocaust survivor turned author, psychiatrist, and neurologist speaks about that chapter of his life and how he came to a place of understanding about our "purpose" in this life we have to live. In one particular section of memoir, Frankl shares that you could tell when a prisoner had given up on life. It was like they would go into a catatonic state of being, lifeless, hopeless, with the only real evidence of life being the inhaling and exhaling their bodies forced them to enact. At that point what had been a dire situation at best, became a situation with no hope and they could no longer see that their life had meaning, or purpose. Yet for Frankl, a survivor, that strand of hope, the belief that if he gave up and died his purpose in life, the very purpose that he was created to achieve, a purpose that would impact the lives of so many others would never be accomplished. Because of Viktor Frankl's resiliency and will to live his book "Man's Search for Meaning" has been read by millions including myself and it has made a difference in the world.
How about you? Are you living life like it has meaning? Extreme situations find some people giving up and they are just taking in oxygen and exhaling carbon monoxide literally and figuratively. Some may be like the rock, they haven't given up, but they are stuck sitting in one place. Think of a rut in the road, the wheels are moving going somewhere, yet stuck in a routine pattern of just living life, doing what has to be done to make it to Friday, the end of the school year, until vacation, or retirement. Sad. Living only to see the ticks on the clock pass.
Not me, Nope, No sir, No ma'am, Nada, No way, Not gonna live my life like that! You have been given your life just the way it is because there is a reason, a purpose behind every little thing that happens in your life. Your destiny in life is not determined by those events, but instead by what you do with those experiences. Both good ones and the not so good ones, even the terrible ones have life changing lessons attached to them if we can only see them through the eyes of a little different perspective.
I choose to live my life with the understanding that my life is not about me. My life is about how many lives I can impact in a positive manner before my "ticks" and "tocks" stop! I've decided to live the dash between May 29, 1963 - ?? with the idea that I've been given one more day, what can I do today to make an impact on one more person's life. Proverbs 16:3 encourages and strengthens me with this directive, "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans." As long as I seek His will for this life He has given me I can't go wrong. Choose to make the minutes, hours, days, months, and years of your biological clock count. Touch lives, enjoy your life, and make someone's life better each day because you were in it! If life were a cup for coffee, I'd fill it to the brim and drink it up!
Coach Carter
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