When you don't have a purpose in life, you walk aimlessly on earth. You have no direction and therefore no spark of life, no desire to live, and no need to live.
It wasn't something easy to share with him because it kind of exposed just what a deep and dark time I had been going through the last 4-5 years.
It's funny because when I said that I was pretty proud of myself (pumps fits on chest) because I really had come such a long way.
And after I told him proudly the Omega Tour gave me purpose, he looked at me and said, “that's it?”
It's really weird to be excited about something so important (esp such as this) and then someone kind of downplays it.
You see, I was barely surviving. I didn’t even feel like living at times. So to me, having a purpose again in life was a good thing. Yet, in his eyes, “that's really all you're doing? That's really all you're doing that's giving you purpose?"
Um, YES. That was huge for me to be living again! To FEEL like living again. And running the Tour gave me that feeling after such a long time of being depressed and grieving.
After that exchange I got to thinking... he's right! I should be doing more. I should be helping more. Being more productive; more helpful; being there for others; doing more for others; doing more for me.
So I thought of all these ideas of things that I've always wanted to do, things that were in the cobwebs of the back of my mind…. but didn't have the desire or commitment or even the energy to do them when I took my “hiatus from living.” They were pushed back into the depths of my virtual “maybe to-do” list of things that maybe I thought I wanted to do.
I think that a lot of times we just go through life and don't think about what we want or what we want to do.
And I think that when we are grieving and extremely depressed (or clinically depressed), the last thing we feel like doing or have the energy to do is the things on our virtual, internal to-do-list.
And after taking 4-5 years from truly living, when you start to live again, you start to see things in a different light/way.
And while I'm still struggling to survive on some days still, I do want to give back to others and do more.
What are some of these things on my list?
Here's a short little list of things I’m been passionate about and recently started since "that's it?" :
- Giving pool lessons (already started)
- Taking on a more active role in the Coalition of Quality of End of Life Care (I’m a board member)
- Donating more (already started)
- Being involved in the volunteer program at my work building (looking into it just this week)
- Get back into mediation (already started)
Down the road:
- Public Speaking for End-of-Life-Care
- Take some self-help classes
It’s crazy how a simple comment from someone can make such a profound effect on one’s life.
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