What is my purpose and why have I struggled so long to find it?

I have stressed over this question for no less than 40 years and I don’t think I have ever found anything close to an earth shattering “aha” about it. So, why has it eluded me? I think I have been searching and inquiring through the lense of the ego or identity. I have always searched for something that was either money driven or for acknowledgement or notoriety. What an interesting conundrum! So, I believe, the very survival and ego needs that our culture pushes is exactly what has gotten in the way all these years.

When I think back to High School and Frostburg State College, I remember well what I was good at and VERY interested in pursuing: reading, writing, performing and teaching. I LOVED reading, researching and putting my words onto paper or into my art. I always enjoyed sharing my insights and logic as well as entertaining and making others laugh. These are things that come so naturally and easily for me.

The more I ponder this the clearer I see that these are talents or skills, not purpose. However, these talents and skills come in very handy in pursuing or fulfilling a task or purpose of the moment. What I am searching for is that sign in the sky that tells me what I am on this planet to do. What is my destiny? Unfortunately, I have never found that sign, and what’s more; this “destiny” has changed from day to day, year to year and moment to moment. It evolves.

I had a clear thought earlier while pondering this that resonated with me. I thought about animals and plants. What was their purpose in nature, on the earth, in the cosmos? TO EXIST! To be! To live! Think about it. There is a harmony behind all of it that simply wants to express itself. As humans we call these things talents and skills. In nature, we’ve mistakenly called it purpose. Is it really?

Was the bee “created” for the purpose of pollinating flowers? No, they are simply collecting nectar to take back to the hive. It’s their food. The by-product of that activity is the pollination of the flowers. Just sit with it and ponder this. Do the flowers have a purpose? Do trees have a purpose? Do fish or deer or the carnivorous animals? No! They simply exist and express themselves and what they are good at…

So, to translate this concept to me is easy. My purpose now is simply to live and exist. No high and mighty purpose to bog me down anymore. Sure, I have things I am good at and enjoy doing, but they do not define my purpose anymore. They are simply forms of expression yearning to be expressed through this form called Stefen. It is Life or Source Energy living and expressing through its multitude of forms and expressions. They are as vast as the Universe itself.

I am another expression of LIFE. The purpose of this human is simply to live each day and express the gifts and talents life shares through me, moment by moment, day by day, year by year.

So, where does that leave this conversation? Fulfilled? Hardly! Really, the conundrum is getting the mind to wrap itself around the simplicity of this realization. It actually is not the mind, it is the ego, or the identity that must grasp this and that is not in its nature to do so. Furthermore, it will change from moment to moment, evolving and becoming a moving target.

In looking at life now I have a whole new spin, a whole new freedom, a whole new space. Wow, how lovely to be able to breathe now!