Losing Purpose
WRITTEN BY MICHAEL BURTON
charlotte lifestyle july/august
27
In our premier issue Lisa Moore gave us so many great
things to think about in finding purpose in our lives.
It was very well received; we all want to live more
purposeful lives that make a difference in some way. It is
inherent in our nature. The elimination of purpose would
render us superfluous to the world around us; we would
be directionless. We could turn left or right at any corner,
as our final destination would promise nothing more than
complete irrelevancy.
But……………….what if…………….we tried it, not for any
length of time but maybe for a short burst. Now I’m not
suggesting you sit down and try counting to a million, but
what if you went somewhere for no particular reason at all.
What if you eliminated all expectation on your journey to
particular nowhere thereby eliminating disappointment?
What might you find? Who might you meet?
We are creatures of habit, conformists to our own
machinations; we live through each minute of every day
with a set of expectations. We don’t like the unknown, and
our opinions and beliefs are typically formed by the things
we are exposed to. We are a successful species in large
part due to our advanced level of pattern recognition. This
is something we may take for granted, but without this
ability our species would have died out long ago. And so
we go through the moments in a certain utility producing
exactly what we expect. This of course is not a liability
as we have produced great things as a result……….but my
suggestion is periodic short bursts of abandoning the utility
we have become so accustomed to.
I could say something simple like “don’t forget to stop
and smell the flowers,” but it is quite a bit more complex
than that. I see it as almost a conscious form of meditation,
a temporary remediation of the data we have gathered over
time and have come to rely on. As such, opening us up to a
certain potential we would not otherwise experience.
So losing purpose…….may not be such a strange idea.
And so your next journey to nowhere particular, for no
particular reason may turn out to be the most purposeful
day of your life, you may awaken senses you didn’t know
were there, and find enlightenment towards a whole new
direction…………….and if it doesn’t……….well then………… it
really doesn’t matter anyway.