When It's On Purpose
“Just keep swimming. Swimming, swimming.” - Dory, as played by Ellen Degeneres, Finding Nemo
No too long ago I went to a luncheon and it got me thinking about plastic cutlery. You know those nice little packages that are wrapped in a plastic sleeve? They come with a fork, knife, spoon, and napkin, sometimes even salt and pepper. All of which is neatly secured together, ready for your utensil needs.
Over the years I’ve seen many of those disposable mess kits go into the garbage without ever being used. In fact, at the luncheon, I myself was the culprit. I took the set thinking that I would need it but ended up just pitching it, unused. Later that evening I started to feel a bit guilty about it.
For one, it was obviously wasteful and I firmly believe in reduce, reuse, recycle. But that wasn’t what really got to me. Instead, it was the idea that the little set had been designed and created for a specific purpose and it never fulfilled it. And that was my fault. Maybe I seem a little crazy for getting sentimental about a disposable product that never fulfilled it goal in its short life but stay with me.
Most everything in this world is created full of purpose and potential. It has an obvious reason for existing. An implicit purpose. I don’t pick up a cutlery set and say to myself, “What the heck do I use this thing for?” No, because it’s obvious.
But then there’s us, humans. We come into this world and we try to find our way. We aren’t nicely packaged like that cutlery. Our purpose doesn’t always seem obvious to us. Some people spend their entire lives trying to figure out what they were meant to do and never quite settle on an answer. Other people figure it out early on but then never quite are able to live their purpose. This can be devastating to a person’s mentality. It can lead us to feel not good enough. It can lead us to think we wasted our time and maybe even our lives.
Back to the cutlery. I want to take a different perspective. What if we are assigning the wrong purpose to it. What if that little plastic wrapped set’s purpose isn’t to be used for eating? What if it’s simply to be there and be ready to be used if needed? Maybe that is enough. Maybe, it just needed to show up.
Back to the humans. I think sometimes we spend so much time and effort trying to figure out what we are “supposed” to do with our lives that we forget to show up. We can sometimes allow ourselves to live in the mentality of “someday.” You know what I mean, right?
We say things like, “I just gotta get through these next few years. Then things will be better.” Instead, I challenge myself, and all of you readers out there, to not just focus on the long view but also the short view.
Show up. Be present. You won’t always be able to do it but you’ve got to try. I believe that when we make the effort to be there and be available, we will find that there is purpose all around us.
Stay present, my friends.
-Jason