What is your purpose in life?

I live in a beautiful town with a beautiful ocean. I have the luxury that on my time off, the days that most people around the world are working, I am off laying on clean tan sand with the view of the ocean to my left, and the view of a lifeguard to my right. Most think lifeguards are young and simple-minded, with little going on between their ears. Most lifeguards in city pools or recreational centers are usually no older than 26 years old, and a good chunk are barely old enough for their first legal scotch. Well hell, have no desire to even know what a desire for a scotch may be.

But at the beach, you’d find them of all ages. It doesn’t shock me to see older lifeguards (40 years old or older) on the beaches in their red shorts, doing a very good job I may say to always scan the shores of the sea, but it does boggle my mind. Unsure about how much they might make if they’re even happy at their job, or why they even stay, but it does make me wonder. A lifeguard’s journey is to start off there and then move into either being a firefighter or a paramedic which leads to being a firefighter because in my state you have to be a paramedic first in order to be a firefighter.

So it made me think, why do some people never grow into the potential of their end goal? Why do some people stay at those entry-level jobs? Why do some people never leave the serving industry, entry-level desk jobs, and assisting and never become the main professional in that industry? People say they are happy, but as someone who probably doesn’t know how to just be happy at the moment, is it true that they are happy? Or do they believe they are happy because they know that being comfortable is happier than taking that next step knowing it’s going to be hard and vigorous and a pain?

Every time I walk into a restaurant, a grocery store, or anywhere else that I know people don’t make a high salary, or just pass livable wages, I think WHY?! Why are you still working at your bare minimum? Especially those I see working really hard – physically or mentally. It actually makes me mad cause those people that work so hard – I think what the fuck are you doing working SO HARD for someone else and not yourself? Do you not respect yourself enough to want to do all that for yourself? Where does fear take over all the aspects that you could have gained by just making choices to further move you into your future?

It’s truly hard for me to agree and accept people’s decision to stay in one place where they don’t see progress in. I truly do not understand it and it’s not like I even work for myself, so maybe I’m so bugged by it by others because it’s like looking in a mirror.

I believe Freud spoke about this a lot. The stages in life that people get stuck in. That there becomes moments where you identify people/places/things as your reasoning to not push past to move into your potential. Your fear or maybe someone else’s fear put upon you played on repeat in your mind as to hold you back on your life’s journey.

We all have a purpose, don’t we?

Do we really believe that our purpose is just to stay at one job, one company, or the status quo? Just because you don’t value career growth, does that really mean something about you and your self-development? Your capacity for improvement lies in the hands of another person.

I truly question these things and truly wonder why is it that we do what we do, and more specifically why do we choose the jobs we do. What keeps us there? The people/place/ or things you can do with your income? Is anyone truly happy at their job? And what makes it so enjoyable?

Is your job even your Soul’s purpose in this world?

Someone once asked me if I knew my purpose, and if I think I have a purpose. And I said, of course, everyone has a purpose. He chuckled, and he asked if I knew what mine was and that I need to find my purpose. I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes at him, since I was speaking to him that day to seek out what my purpose really was here to do. Because for me, yes I do believe my job needs to be my Soul’s purpose. What is it? That I’m not too clear on. What am I comfortable and at ease with doing for the rest of my life? How can I help others by helping myself? But by like truly helping myself – by doing the work I need to do in order to know that once I’ve been healed and can move past it, then I can offer that service over to other people too. People usually find their calling to serve in ways that they have seen other people suffer and that makes them suffer too. So then they make it a mission to be the calling of that organization, to be the leader of the solution to a problem.

How can I make peace within myself by serving others in ways that I wish I was served or in which of ways I saw the need for others to be served? They say it always connects to a horrific event in your life, and that this way you can always be in control and never be a victim again in those ways. You are always leading away your traumas to rest and to feel at ease to want to enjoy to live another day.

I do wonder if ..for example you always thrive for safety, and that you always make sure to find the protection to protect you, that what you really need to do is find how to stand up for that fear of knowing you can protect yourself without the help of others. But what if that safety is internalized, then you shall have to go deep within. Psychoanalyze yourself, your fears, your own dreams and your wishes in order to not only feel safe but know it’s always there for you. Like hope. Creating hope for others, by knowing you have hope for yourself.