Today I am revisiting a previously published column.             

Inventing Your Life

“Purpose”

By

Rob Claudio

There have been many books written to discuss the reason one must be on this earth.  I know I have read a few that were quite inspiring to me and that made me think a little deeper about defining what my purpose was.  It is an interesting review, when you think about your life’s accomplishments and what still remains to be seen. Since the future is vast and unknown to us, I maintain that living by doing what’s right in the “right now” time frame, may be the best platform for us to proceed.  In prior years I did some training on “Excellence” and it's meaning to my life. The shortest version of it, meant doing the right things for the right reasons.  One example that I always spoke about is the mere effort of returning a shopping cart to the shopping cart section at a store.  Living an excellent life begins with doing small excellent things on a daily basis. I was once at a Target store and it was raining, I was walking around my truck and putting things in the back seat while holding an umbrella.  After I was done, I was so tempted to leave the cart there and just take off. I figured nobody is watching me. However, being that I taught and spoke about this in my training sessions, I knew I had to walk that cart to its designated spot in rain and puddles.  A lady saw me as she was getting into her car by the cart section and told me, “I have never seen anyone do this, especially in this type of weather.”  I smiled and simply responded, “I have to, I teach about it,” and I walked back in more rain and stepped in more puddles.  I thought to myself as I drove off and laughed, that lady must have thought how weird to run into someone who teaches about shopping carts.  Interestingly, when you do the right things for the right reasons, you will find that it is hard to go back and regress to not doing things the right way.  I think our inner-self realizes that we can live a much more peaceful existence and sleep well at night knowing that we have done the right things.  There are lots of examples of where to begin this process if you have not already done so.  Allowing people to merge on the freeway; opening the door for someone who is having difficulty doing so; thanking people for an act of kindness while looking into their eyes, or perhaps giving of yourself or your talent to a worthy cause.  The possibilities are endless; the rewards are great.  You get to choose every day how to proceed with the rest of your life, I hope you choose wisely.       

“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like”

– Will Rogers