Living with purpose

The great and glorious masterpiece of man is how to live with a purpose. Montaigne

Got purpose? And no, I'm not referring to the over-read, over-publicized "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren. (Tell us, Beth, how do you really feel about that book? *grin*)
Do you have purpose? There doesn't need to be a whole book about this topic - it's pretty straightforward. If you don't have purpose you will "waste" away. And get this - you do have purpose. You do! The question is are you living up to it? Or are you choosing to hunker down in a pit of self-pity, dysfunction, despair, etc? The choice is yours. You can either live your life as a piece of scrap metal or as a glorious masterpiece of art. The choice is yours because you were created with purpose. But you have to put some sweat equity into it. Your purpose isn't going to just live out itself, you have to bring it forth.
Don't know how to bring forth your purpose? Don't know what it is or might be? Just start living and giving 100% to living and see what rises to the top. Oh and lose the thoughts of grandeur. The greatest purpose for life is one in which "small" things are done day-to-day with excellence. One of the greatest purpose filled lives you can live is being the very best parent to your child you can be. Sure you may not receive the Noble Prize for it but the ripple effect of that will go a whole lot further than some prize. (Here's my proof - how many Noble Prize winners can you name? How many parents can you name that you admire? See?) That's just one example of something the world considers to be "small" but in reality is huge!
You've got purpose, so go and live it out.

Comments

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

A dime a dozen

"It's said that in the year 1796, the first U.S. dimes were produced for circulation. Hence, it would make sense for this phrase to originate sometime after." Read more here . Today the phrase carries the meaning that something is cheap or without value if it can be lumped in with other similar or exactly-like things. It's more of an insult than anything.

Life according to van Gogh...sort of

There are two ways of thinking about painting, how not to do it and how to do it; how to do it -- with much drawing and little color; how not to do it -- with much color and little drawing. Vincent van Gogh in a l etter to Theo van Gogh, April 1882 Life is a little bit like today's quote from van Gogh. Some of us live life focusing on the drawing - the details - and have very little color. Others of us go for the color and forsake, to a degree, the drawing - the details. Unlike painting, according to van Gogh, one is not wrong over the other but somewhere in between the two would be the best I would think. If you look at some of van Gogh's paintings I feel like you can see where he might have struggled between the "how to do it" and the " how not to do it" (as he admittedly loved color so much but knew he had to focus more on the drawing) and that seems to be reflected in his life as well. In the end he wasn't able to find the ...

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