Today is the first day of the rest of your life. So what are you going to do with the rest of your life? Perhaps you are still young or perhaps you are retired already. Doesn’t matter, the question remains the same for each one of us.
If you are in your thirties, you may have many options of things you would still like to accomplish in your lifetime. But for people in their sixties or even seventies, there may be fewer options available.
Yet to keep on living a fulfilling life you need to have something significant yet to do.
75 countries
I once read about a man who on his eighteenth birthday decided that he would love to visit at least seventy five countries in his lifetime. By the time he turned seventy, he had already visited seventy two countries. So because he made this decision when he was young, at seventy his goal was still within reach and it gave him something to live for, something significant yet to do.
To make such a resolution the day you retire, may be somewhat farfetched for most anybody. The important thing though is that you must have something significant that you still want to do or achieve in your lifetime; a reason for you to get up every day. Some people start writing a book (or even books) after retirement, some even start a business.
A dream to farm
A relative’s father always had a dream to farm. So when he retired at the age of sixty, he sold his suburban house and bought a farm where he first built a house and then for the last twenty seven years of his life built up the farm which one of his sons now farm on.
Perhaps you are in midlife, but the question remains whether you experience your life to have purpose in whatever you do on a daily basis? At a meeting where I presented a talk a man came to me afterward and told me about how his life changed after he read a magazine article that I wrote.
Life changing article
In the article I asked whether someone feels like a square peg in a round hole in his or her current job. This man said that he used to work in the agriculture sector, and when he read the article he realized that was him. So he resigned from his job to follow a career in financial services and he said it made all the difference.
So, what makes you tick, that reason for getting out of bed in the morning, that reason for living?
On this first day of the rest of your life, did you get up this morning with a purpose to fulfil or just another day?
# A life of purpose
In his book The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren says that the greatest tragedy is not death, but life without purpose. A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder – a waif, a nothing, a no man. (Thomas Carlyle)
Warren says first and foremost
we were made by God and for God – and until we understand that, life will never make sense.
You didn’t create yourself, so there is no way you can tell yourself what you were created for.
It’s not about yourself
Focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life’s purpose. According to Prov 11:28 “A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree.” (MSG)
Richard Bolles in What Colour is your Parachute? agrees and says that our mission (purpose) in life stems from our relationship with God and then plays out in how we employ our gifts and talents in serving our fellow men.
Therefore let us serve God and men with the purpose God has called each one of us to fulfil. “For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, … got started in Him and finds its purpose in Him.” (Col 1:16) (MSG)
Do you feel like a square peg in a round hole in your job or business and you don’t know why? If that is you, a Career Direct Assessment (available online) will help you understand. It will not only show who you are, but will also point you in the right direction.
