22. Passion is Purpose
EPISODE DESCRIPTION: We all recognize what lights us up inside, yet many prefer to keep their passion at bay. How would our lives be different if we put our conditioning on the backburner instead of the richness of being fully alive?
Episode theme music ‘Feel Alive’ by Age of the Bear
TRANSCRIPT
Hey, you. I'm glad you're back. I hope you enjoyed your power nap.
Today's fleeting thought is about ‘purpose.’
Did I hear you grumble?
I've always thought I've taken a circuitous route to my life's purpose, only to realize in hindsight that I've been living mine, or a part of it, all my life, most of my life. However, people have asked me now, what do you do for a living? Even my own family, it's like perplexed them my entire. This says more about an inability to brand my work, which is super scary, considering I did that for a living for a while.
But ultimately, I could have simplified it and just responded, “I tell stories for a living.” Still, I thought I had to be some paid author like Stephen King, or I couldn't just hang out my shingle as a publicist or a producer and somehow say, “I tell stories for a living,” which is precisely what I’ve done.
You say this now… I say that ‘I tell stories for a living,’ and the response outwardly or in someone's head is, “Yeah, well, who doesn't tell stories these days?”
That's a cool thing if you think about it.
Telling stories is essential, and for me, storytelling is in my DNA. I mean, I'm Irish, for God's sake.
Secondly, I was born into a family that gives me plenty of storytelling fodder. I have a dad who entertained our entire childhood as though we were living inside some magical story.
And my mom has spent the last 50-plus years repurposing stories from thousands of years ago. So a new generation of children can embrace their faith with more understanding. It's also why there's so much content creation happening. Storytelling's a rich tradition that used to take place around campfires or in darkly lit pubs, evolving to pulpits and then onto physical stages.
Storytelling used to be intimate. We told stories to our children, our families, and our tribes. Now the worldwide web makes the inhabitants of our entire planet an available audience, which is cool. One day early in my career, I asked myself, okay, so if I just put together things that I love, then I could make a living telling stories.
So I started telling them about artists, photographers, filmmakers, architects, and authors. Then instead of just scribbling my own stories into a journal, I started a blog, literally just writing about my family, which stemmed from Facebook posts about the crazy things that would transpire while I was on vacation with my crazy parents.
Storytelling became even more of a passion project when I realized it could help a hurting world. So my dad and I got on board and began lending our voices to the conversation about how we start to make our way back to those who see life differently or through a different lens.
We could help heal or empower or change the world. So I think, “Okay, well, I'm a storyteller. I love my family. I love storytelling. What else do I love?”
Ah, being out in nature and hiking, exploring, and not just exploring in nature, but exploring unknown things about myself and other people.
Exploring spirituality, exploring why things affect us the way they do, or why I do what I do. Kind of behavioral or exploration, relational exploration. Exploration is an essential piece of understanding who we are as individuals, how we fit into this planet, how we fit into humanity, or how we define what moves us, what makes us tick, what moves us forward, and what keeps us committed to a dream.
Exploration is a pivotal part of our human experience. So I was like, okay, I love exploration. And then, of course I love alliteration, so I was like, okay, I'm going to illiterate all the things that I'm passionate about, so explore. I love fully living life, fully engaging—engaging with myself, engaging with my spirituality and spirit, engaging with my God, and others, and on and on and on.
Engagement is, to me, very pivotal, and then expressing that unique signature and expression in the world. We've all got our own unique signature thumbprint bundle of characteristics, our DNA. That's why we can do something very similar to what someone else may have done or is doing, but it is not the same because we've got our soul signature on it, our flare on it.
Here it all lies. Right? Put together what you love.
The other thing I want you to consider in terms of ‘Purpose’ is if you look at all the people that are doing amazing things in the world, they're doing things that move them, something they love, they're doing things that have a vibe that fits them, that are aligned with them.
For instance, if I tried to do something involving chemistry, holy hell, or algebra. No, don't get me started on missing variables. X, Y, Z. You baffle me. I would likely fail in careers requiring either of these things. I'm not good at them, nor do they light me up. I'm actually bored at the thought of them.
But to my niece, Lera, chemistry brings her alive with passion.
And that's the other piece.
What brings you alive at any given moment? If you can follow what brings you alive and fills you with. You've won the human experience. If you can keep on doing that and keep that at the forefront of all you ever do, you have definitely won the human experience.
To put it another way, you are going to live a very fulfilled life because things that wake us up and make us feel alive, those are the things that are always going to lead us to where we're supposed to be. If you want to affect the world positively, like Jay Shetty and Brené Brown and all these amazing people out there, what do they all have in common?
They're moving in the direction of their passion. Even Joseph Campbell said,Follow “ your bliss. If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a track that has been there waiting for you, and suddenly the life you ought to be living is now the life you are living. When you follow your bliss, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss. And they open doors for you.”
Joseph Campbell also says, “Follow your bliss and do not be afraid.
[Sounds like somebody else I know.]
“…Doors will open where you did not know they were going to open, and doors will open for you. That would not have opened for anyone else. That is so beautiful. That is so huge.
Think about that. We all have a Soul Purpose. We all have a soul—
I don't know if you'd call a calling—but it's there.
So today, the thought I'm landing on is this:
Follow your bliss, for it is second to none. It has your name on it because you are the one. You'll know when you have it, do what makes you come alive.
Follow your bliss down the River of Life and you will no longer strive.
You can't go wrong with that. Life isn't about suffering, by the way. That's a bullshit lie. I don't know why people have tried to tell us this, but you don't have to suffer to get through the world.
Will you suffer?
Absolutely.
But it's not a requirement. There's nothing about God, the Universe of Unlimited Possibilities that you must suffer.
Now again, because you're part of human nature and part of the human experience, you're going to suffer. That's part of our emotions. It's part of how we mindf f%*k ourselves.
But I believe you will suffer greatly if you ignore your bliss.
So move in the direction of your greatest joy, and everyone around you will benefit from this. When we live our respective purpose, our passion, it pulls everyone else up to a place where they can better recognize theirs.
And if you don't believe me, watch a little child. Watch a little child who has no preconceived crap that's been dumped on them or anything that's been fed to them about "this is what is right, and this is what is wrong." "This is what is real. This is what is not real. "
Nobody's yet curbed their enthusiasm. They're just living fully alive. They're joyful for the sake of being joyful. Just take them in and watch the wild abandon with which they live in joy, and tell me that if you didn't act and follow life more like that, you wouldn't be happier.
I don't know what your purpose is. But you do.
Somewhere deep inside of you, get still and invite it to reveal itself.
And for those of us who know or feel alive at the thought of our Purpose, follow that bliss.
It will not lead us astray.
And that is all I have for today.
I'll see you tomorrow.
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The podcast is hosted, produced, and edited by Jenée Arthur.
Cover art by Jenée Arthur
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