Why do so many people wake up every day and go to a job they hate? How about the many that are so excited about the weekend and dread the Mondays? Or those that are struggling every day and not getting fulfillment? Why do so many spend their entire lives in a rat race with no peace in sight? Why do so many always wish for a life of purpose yet only a handful live it? The key to all this is that you need to know yourself and live a life of purpose.
How a young man changed his life
About a century ago, in Georgia, there was a young man in his mid-twenties, who battled with the same questions. He was, at the time, working as a car salesman but did not have the slightest idea what made a car run and did not care to know. He hated his job and felt angry because every morning he had to get up and do something that his heart greatly despised. Every night, he came home to his lonely room with the worst of headaches- a headache that had been bred from a life of disappointment, bitterness, worry, and rebellion.
Every day the same questions rang in his mind. Is this all there is to life? Is this the great adventure I had always envisioned? How have all my childhood and college dreams turned into nightmares? Is this all life will ever be? He longed to write to live and live to write, read for leisure and live an abundant life.
He knew he had everything to gain and nothing to lose by giving up the job he loathed. Money did not interest him, only living; living a life that meant and had more. More fulfillment, more purpose, more reason to get up every day and make the most of every second. So he made a decision at that point to make for himself a life worth living. He would cross his Rubicon- that moment of decision that faces most young men and women as they start out in adult life. The decision he made would completely alter his future and inject happiness and rewards beyond his wildest dreams.
His decision to live a life of purpose
The decision- to give up the job he despised and make a living teaching an adult class in night schools. The days would be free and long, free to read books, prepare lectures, and write novels and short stories.
Deciding the subject to teach required him to pick something he was good at and that he dearly loved. Nothing excited him more than public speaking. Why? Looking back and evaluating his training in college, public speaking had groomed his confidence and wiped out his timidity a great deal. It had given him a certain level of courage and assurance to deal with people. He started teaching at the YMCA night schools, after rejection, by Columbia University and New York State University.
The challenge to know himself and live a life of purpose
The challenge- The people who attended his courses wanted results and wanted them fast. They were ordinary folk, businessmen and salesmen who were not interested in awards or prestige. All they wanted was a practical solution to their problems. Worry was one of their biggest problems. He had to develop an extremely practical and inspiring course if he wanted to keep them coming.
To prepare for the challenge at hand, he read what philosophers of all ages had written on worry and read hundreds of autobiographies. He also interviewed countless people from all walks of life on the subject of worry; on methods, they had applied when dealing with worrying situations and how some had completely banished worry from their lives. He also ran a laboratory in which he conducted numerous experiments. His method- he gave students in his class a set of rules on how to stop worrying and asked them to apply these rules in their own lives and then talk to the class on the results they had obtained. Others reported on techniques they had used in the past.
The reward of living with purpose
Within three seasons at the YMCA, the $5 a night that the YMCAs had declined to pay quickly rose to $30 a night on commission. The young man was now living his wildest dream; sharing life’s simple truths with anyone who wished for a peaceful life. His courses resulted in 6 best-sellers and the birth of a self-improvement empire that has franchises in over 80 countries and over 9 million graduates.
Dale Carnegie
The man I describe was Dale Carnegie. He was born and raised on a farm in Missouri. He then worked at several jobs before his public speaking courses at YMCA, he rose to be one of the most phenomenal authors and businessmen the world has seen.
Dale Carnegie was able to live his life to the fullest because he found the answer to his questions. Know yourself and live a life of PURPOSE. Knowing your purpose is the most important discovery anyone can make in life. It is the original intent of why something was created in the first place. You were created for a SPECIAL PURPOSE. You possess in you the power to change your story, the power to shift your life in an amazing and unimaginable way; to achieve wonders beyond your greatest dreams, to conquer nations and the world.
The time to live a life of purpose is NOW
“How strange it is, our little procession through life,” wrote Stephen Leacock. “The child says ‘When I am a big boy’. The boy says ‘When I grow up’. And then, grown up he says ‘When I retire’ And then when retirement comes, he looks back over the landscape traversed; a cold wind seems to sweep over it; somehow he has missed it all and it is gone.
Life, we learn too late, is in the living; in the very tissue of every day and hour.