I think we best structure understanding through the shared empiricism of experience and expectation. When I study those building blocks closely I see the code for purpose. I see in those the ideas that create what I think my life is supposed to be. What I expect (or learn to expect) and what I experience shapes the idea of why I am. This is, to me, why so many people get locked into a singular track and why so many others wind up lost upon the path and wander off into the woods only to be lost and aimless forever. Me, I’ve always believed in purpose–in what I was supposed to do, but purpose too shifts over time. It moves from what I am supposed to do towards what I am supposed to do now, based upon experience and (no surprise here) expectation. I fear that when you let go of one of those two blocks–one of those helixes in a double helix that is in of itself one half of a double helix–You lose the power in yourself to guide your path.
I don’t know my purpose. I did, for a time. I knew I was meant to teach and in that time of knowing I was driven and dedicated and absolutely certain of what was and was meant to be. After a while that purpose became unclear. I shifted towards a sense of not knowing and my certainty of a great many things crumbled. I was certain of only one thing: It was time for things to change. I resisted in very open and foolish ways and quite terribly damaged my life and my opportunity to be happy not only in the moment but in a lasting constructive way. I didn’t listen to the self. I broke away from the certainty and didn’t allow purpose to reestablish itself. In a phrase, I screwed everything up.
Now I sit in a space where I am listening to the universe, embracing my fears and my present, and I am allowing purpose and certainty to reassert themselves and rebuilding the double helix that is the rest of my life.