How a sense of purpose can keep you healthy

In the work that I do in both private and public organisations the issues of purpose and direction are strongly associated with stress. Those that feel that they do have a clear direction are more energised and even dynamic. Those that feel that they have a direction suffer less from stress related conditions.

Having a direction is having a purpose.

Question: What is the purpose of your life?

That is a big question and is the one that can create a lot of stress along with…

Why are we here? What’s is life all about? What happens when we die?

The deal is that we all need to fill in space in between birth and death. We can either find a meaningful way to do that or we can blunder, try to cope and survive this thing called ‘life’.

I have travelled the world attempting to discover the purpose of life, to understand why I am alive and what I am supposed to be doing with my life. Biologists tell me that my role is to reproduce. Some scientist tell me that this is all a chance mistake and that I should just put up with it. The religious lobby tells me generally that life is hard and life is earnest and that we are here to learn and grow in a spiritual way and, that if I am a good chap, I will get my reward in heaven. One priest told that we all have “our own cross to bear” and that we should see suffering as a good thing. Hey ho.

In the early 1980s I was at a cross roads in life that was about making the decision about what I should do with life. I spoke with the great and the good and decided, perhaps in my arrogance, that they were all wrong. I came to the conclusion that life was supposed to be happy, that each of us was entitled to our own fulfilment and that suffering was for those who believed that we all had to suffer. Suffering is a bad deal, I don’t like and don’t want it, you can keep it.

So, my thinking went this way. If I am going to live a happy life then I would need to devote the time that I had left to me in doing things that made me happy. The question was what is it that makes me happy? I guess this is another question point.

Question: What is it that would make you happy?

It took me a long time, as in many months, to gradually be honest enough with myself to truly answer the question. I went through the wealth and materialism, the power, recognition, status and position and let it all go in favour of two simple things that I knew made me happy. I began to realise that whenever I did either of these things I had a smile on my face and a skip in my step. That I got easily out of bed with a positive expectation of the day ahead. Then I realised that whenever I did either of these things I came home with a smile on my face feeling good about my life and about who I was and what I was doing. Those two things were…

Playing music and working with people

The playing music has taken me all over the place. I have played and recorded music in my own right, I have backed some amazing people. I have created backing recordings for my own meditation, relaxation recording and apps and even wrote and recorded the music that Rie walked down the isle to when we got married. I play music everyday and keep a small travel guitar in my consulting rooms so that I can distress at anytime during the day when I get the opportunity.

Working with people is my life, it is the only thing that makes any sense to me out of this mad thing called life…

If we all look after each other we will all be ok

However, the point is that I work with other people because it makes me feel good, it makes me smile and it gives my life purpose. If I got more joy from collecting stamps, being in the army or being a mortician I would be doing those things instead.

The extensions of joy
The weird thing is that when you do connect with your purpose it really is just a beginning. Now that you are on your path it leads you to other places, ideas and things? My music world has taken me to so many places and been such a joy and an inspiration and it continues to do so. Working with other people has taken me through various areas of academia to writing books and appearing at conferences, working all around the world and doing the podcast and this blog.

But even now I play with the idea of what will I do when I grow up. Hopefully I never will grow up and will carry on enjoying this thing called life.

Whatever you decide to do with your life, let it be joyful.

Take care and be happy.

Sean x

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