The Meaning Of Life?

I spend a lot of time thinking about what the meaning of life is. You know why are we here? If you are a Christian then you have to at least believe that part of the reason you are here is so you can essentially choose to be with God or not, but once you do that (if that’s all there is) then I mean you would have nothing left to do/accomplish. Take a seat son and cruise along you’re done. If you didn’t do anything else in life then you win. I personally don’t feel that’s all there is
All I heard about from friends, family, tv, and that one weird random motivational speaker that comes and talks to your class senior year is “College is about finding yourself”, or “you really discover who you are in college.” So I essentially set out to do that. I spent a lot of my college experience trying to discover who I am.

I got to the point where I saw who I was and that’s it? I’m done? Fast forward to today and that’s where I am. I know what I am, I love who I am, but my journey isn’t over. Yesterday I had this epiphany. We are told to “find ourselves”; to go out and find out who you are. Instead you should find out what you want to become and then become that. The more I study myself I learn that limitations I believed in or things that I thought were personality traits are really things I can change. Just in reading this blog I can see that I’m not who I was six or even two months ago. I limit myself and thus my world as opposed to the other way around. Now I obviously will never be a 6’8” pro basketball player but I think John Eldredge said it best in one of my favorite books, Wild At Heart:

Desire reveals design, and design reveals destiny.

I don’t have a desire to be a pro basketball player. I would take the money and fame, but as far as the work that it takes to get there; it wasn’t on my list growing up. I didn’t desire it; I wasn’t designed for it. Everyday is a challenge for me, did I grow today? Did I get better? And I’ve noticed I never find myself lacking if I’m growing. It’s the journey that gives me the confidence, the pride in who I am. I now try and set small goals for myself. Things I want to accomplish in a time frame. And I couldn’t be happier with life because I know I’m in control. Something new I have been trying is when anything bad happens to identify three positive or possible positive outcomes of the negative event.

I have set backs all the time and I probably don’t do things in the best way possible. But as I said in an earlier post, quantity always beats out quality in the end. Just go for it and do your best and you will strike gold. Success can’t be defined because it is different for every single person on this planet. We were all designed (or if you don’t believe in that our environment/genetic makeup makes us more adept to accomplish certain things) to do something different. The variance of humanity and the human experience is awesome in itself.

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
-Gil Bailie