“Is it me, or is this world crazy?”
I hear this from the people I meet and work with all the time. I’m sure they are not alone. How can you not be in a world that is turned upside down?
A large part of my Ladder UPP workshop is to help people identify an honest answer to a very short question, “What is your purpose?” Most people usually end up saying a variation of one of two things:
1) Faith and family
or
2) To be a good person
#2 is usually just a realization of “I don’t really live with a purpose, so if I had one, I guess it would be to be a good person.” Of course, this pseudo-purpose usually just leads one down a long, dreary, muddling street, so I’ll address that one in another post!
Today, we are focusing on #1, faith and family.
Most people, when they break down their life and look through the mundane and “shiny” things that keep them busy, will say their purpose is faith and family. And that right there is a big reason why so many people have the thought, “Is it me, or is this world crazy?” You see, most of us know that when all is said and done and we are six feet under all that really mattered was faith and family, yet we don’t live that way. And the world sure doesn’t live that way. And the dichotomy of what “should be” and “what is” can drive us crazy because we know we are complicit in the craziness.
Think about faith. I can remember as a child visiting my mom’s family where their lives were centered around church. When they said their purpose was faith, they meant it and lived it. Wednesday night, Sunday morning and Sunday night and many times in between, they were there. They prayed at every meal, there was more than one bible out in the open and it was actually read – most were dog-eared and had been passed from one generation to the next. You see, something isn’t really a “purpose” unless it orders your life. That is why so many people today say their purpose is “to be a good person”. It is because in truth the only “purpose” in their life is – go to work, look at phone, drop off and pick-up kids, watch TV, wait for vacation, etc. – you get the picture. For most people, it isn’t a life of purpose, it is a life of mundane errands, basic responsibilities, work and as many leisure activities we can fit in. If we can, we go to church once or twice a month on Sunday morning and hurry out for Starbucks. Or for an increasingly large number, there is no participation in a community of faith, only their own innocuous “spirituality”. Consumed by the world, all that most can hope for is to be “good”. Whatever that means.
Now look at family. It wasn’t long ago our communities were centered around family. The school year and school day were shorter. Schools were for educating our children in the basics, they were not intended to be babysitters and home is where children were expected to learn how to live.
We have let education become the fathers and mothers of our children. Kids today are not raised by their parents. They are raised by school. Don’t be offended or alarmed by that, you know it’s true. Cold, hard, steel, truth. It’s not you, it’s not church, you have let someone else raise your kids and the more you give them, the more they want to take from you. You aren’t in church because you are “too busy”. You choose to live that way and allow yourself to become “too busy” with the mundane and vapid at the expense of the things that really matter. Our lives are reflected by our choices.
Deep inside, you know the truth. Faith and family are more important than your job, than school, then smart phones, than football, than the internet, than vacations, than 401ks, than retirement, than you name it. Yet, you allow yourself to be consumed by all of those temporal things at the expense of what really matters.
Your purpose is not faith and family. It is not to be a good person. If you are like most, your purpose is shallow and base. We consume, we try to avoid pain, we seek pleasure, our vanity drives us.
If that was hard to read, there is hope. You know how you should be living and you can make choices right now to make it happen. And if that didn’t describe you and you are doing your best to live the right way, what can you do to strengthen your values and help others who are also struggling?
Here are three things you can do and suggest to others looking for direction:
1) Right down what your life would look like if faith and family were truly your primary focus. If your work, schooling, etc. were a means to an end, but not the end. If you sacrificed other things to do the things that matter – spending time with your kids, teaching your kids, sharing a living faith with your kids.
2) Now, pick just one thing you wrote down and do it. Cancel Wednesday night yoga and go to church. Don’t be so eager to put junior in pre-school. Eat and pray together as a family at a table, quit the fast food. You get the idea. Live what you might preach, faith and family.
3) Vow to be honest with how you live. Don’t get caught up in our Facebook world where people lie about the good and bad in their life to fit in. Life isn’t high school. Popularity is vapid and full of lies. You will find truth in faith, and truth in the eyes of your children when they know you work hard to be more than a taxi driver for them.
Much love to you and your family. There are so many bright things in your future when you break out of the fog and live as we were created to live, with purpose.
We have one life, so live free!
