How to Find the Purpose of Your Life.

Great ideas are generally equated with innovation and invention. Such breakthroughs aren’t given to many people. But there is another class of great ideas that you and I can have at any time. These ideas concern the meaning and purpose of life. What could be more important to anyone, on a personal level, than knowing what will make them happy and fulfilled?

Reducing the meaning of life to one person at a time is a great idea on its own, even before you find the answer. For centuries, the populace was told en masse the meaning of their lives, which was to obey the rules set down by church and state. Since these rules generally were traceable back to God or the gods, everyone was strongly motivated to fall into line unless they wanted to risk divine wrath.

Today, seeking your own destiny is widely accepted and may even be the norm. This is increasingly true spiritually, where countless people have broken away from established religion to walk their own path. If discovering the meaning of your own life is the right general area of great ideas, what specific idea would be your greatest one?

It would begin, I think, with the words, “I am here to ______.” What remains is to fill in the blank, and yet here is where the challenge lies. Consider the possibilities.

• I am here to be happy.
• or to find love.
• or to be of service.
• or to please God.
• or to be a raving success.
• or to gain money and power.
• or to find my destiny.
• or to fulfill my potential.

These choices aren’t completely either/or. Some will overlap, and all should lead to being happy. If you are of service to the world but find yourself being miserable, then your idea wasn’t as great as you thought when you set out. In fact, choosing how to fill in the blank is very tricky, because you can’t foresee the future. Any answer you pick, any path you decide to walk, could lead to a dead end. Unforeseen consequences follow every major choice in life; it’s unavoidable.

Let’s be more specific, then. However, you fill in the blank, “I am here to ______,” needs to be viable every day, not as a high-flown ideal but as the best thing you can live for today, tomorrow, and the day after. My personal answer is this: I am here to evolve. The reason I chose this answer is, first of all, there are many ways to evolve. Love, success, service, etc. all fit in. You gain a flexible view of what your life has to offer. Second, personal evolution, unlike Darwinian evolution, is under every person’s control. It’s self-directed, based on choices you make in your lifestyle, relationships. social commitments, career, and so on.

Choosing to evolve as your reason for existence has much to commend it, then, but how do you know what is evolutionary today, right this minute? There is no cut-and-dried answer, but there are general guidelines:

• Don’t add to the stress in your life.
• Don’t be a stressor for others.
• Value yourself and others.
• Avoid toxic food, air, and water.
• Connect with Nature and natural beauty.
• Don’t do things you know to be wrong.
• Tolerate others and their viewpoints.
• Be flexible and accepting in your general attitude.
• Try not to resist.
• Get to know yourself.
• Remain open and curious.
• Work on your negative emotions and personal issues.
• Value your core beliefs enough to speak your truth.
• Develop trust.
• Learn to love.

Find a higher power or wisdom tradition that represents a vision of life you can follow.That should be enough to start with. “I am here to evolve” excludes nothing that is life-supporting, and if you mold your daily existence around it, everything gets better year by year. Surely that’s enough to make this the best idea you’ll ever have.

Originally published by Linkedin