Understanding
Knowing why you are here at your deepest levels.
The past few days we’ve explored the Language of Purpose.
Many of you reached out and shared that the before and after of Tohubohu spoke to you as did the exploration of what purpose is not.
The question you still had was…
If that’s not purpose, what is?
audio narration by David Marlow
Definition.
Ikigai can be defined as experiencing your essence and purpose in harmony with whatever you do.
Here is an illustration.
Purpose is on top because it is having an understanding of your purpose that leads to a deeper sense of who you are at your essence and how you can express yourself in harmony with whatever you do.
Let’s explore what it means to understand your purpose.
📌 Understand: The Old English origin of understand meant to comprehend, to read a sign of, and literally stand in the midst of. Coming from the Sanskrit word antar or Latin inter it means among, between.
The Greek takes it deeper to intestines or gut.
So understanding your purpose means knowing why you are here at your deepest levels and among all parts of your being.
Disintegration. 💀
Our Own Worst Enemy.
In defining purpose many get hung up on wanting a deep and comprehensive philosophical understanding of the one thing they should be doing.
They want to know their career or their life partner or some impossible calling like returning the Ring to Mordor.
It is so big and so consequential that it is overwhelming and people freeze. They often end up doing little or nothing.
Integration. 🌀
Begin and then become
As with most things, the best way to uncover your purpose is to start small.
Even a terrible version of your ‘purpose’ is a step toward the beginning and when you begin something it becomes.
Anecdote.
My original purpose verse or what I call my Ikiverse is…
I encourage, empower and enable people to be all they were created to be.
That’s it. I’ve refined it and have a much deeper Ikiverse now. This was good enough to get me started and led me to where I am today.
I live out my Ikigai in business, my hobbies, my marriage, and spending time with my grandchildren all from understanding that simple verse.
Personal Application.
Take the word ‘encourage’ from my Ikiverse. The deeper root meaning of encourage is inspirt which means, to bring forth, to create life.
Now imagine for a moment me spending time with my grandchildren.
Before they come over for the day I contemplate how I might bring life to or create life in them. Very different than ‘watching’ them or hanging out with them.
My deepest thoughts and acts center around pouring love into them and supporting them in expressing the wonderful people they were created to be. To support empower and enable them to live out their completeness as unique human beings.
Professional Application.
A while back a former colleague of mine wanted me to join his company (he was the COO) as their VP of HR.
While I’m not looking for a return to corporate life the job and possibilities intrigued me as he told me they want to bring ‘purpose’ to their employees and have the VP of HR lead it.
I ultimately turned down the job because what they said they wanted and how the role was constructed were dramatically different.
It was more a bureaucratic leader and not someone who could spend any time encouraging, empowering, or enabling the people of the company.
Having my verse helped me understand that role wasn’t for me. An additional win was I shared my Ikiverse with the leaders of that company and helped them see a purpose-focused leader wasn’t what they wanted after all.
🌀Reflection.
What small step could you take today to move past excuses to purpose in your life?
Remember: No matter what has come before, today is a fresh start. 🌱
Let’s make things a little bit better. 🌱
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Hi Dave. From my vantage point I see three tiers of purpose at operation in the Universe. The overarching purpose is also the source of the other tiers of purpose under its umbrella. A person my never look up beyond their visible sphere of natural life. They may even reject the notion of a transcendent spiritual reality. Still, the purpose that they sense is, itself, a testimony of its Source. An atheist can still live with purpose. But only someone connected to the Source of Purpose can draw transcendent strength, hope, joy and meaning beyond their single (individual) and shared (human-species) purposes.
The THREE LEVELS of Purpose:
(1) Sovereign-Purpose: To seek and promote the Glory of God our Creator—the source of Purpose.
(2)Shared-Purpose: Humanity’s collective Purpose: Love=a decision and choice to seek and secure the highest well-being of all fellow humans according to the intent of Sovereign purpose.
(3) Single-Purpose: The responsibility and freedom to fulfill Sovereign and Shared Purpose through an individual’s gifts, passions, talents, aspirations. inspirations and opportunities.
Great ikiquest reflection and to focus on one point> the use of words with EN or EM. EN- | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary Meaning of en- in English en or em- prefix Add to word list used to form verbs that mean to put into or onto something: encase encircle endanger used to form verbs that mean to cause to be something: enable endear enlarge enrich.. OK we got that out and keen to note that the 3 words used put in something to > courage, power and ability! These 3 alone are important especially courage...as we get no where without it. What has the most meaning is the outward expression you are taking with others and family because at the core Ikigai is for the individual > The value of being alive.... a Japanese/Hindi/French concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for living. The key point though is acting towards others which ikigai then may allow for the provision to help others in that fulfillment of purpose. I wish there was more enlightenment of purpose focus on the other...may need more clarification on this?