Gerry writes:

'I have just been reading the latest ezine and I am sure I need help trying to clarify some of the points listed in the ezine.

I am all for living a life on purpose once I have explored the big question of why we are here. And I know people make up their own minds what their life on purpose should be. But how do you deeply know that your path is the correct path and has been correctly set?

Simply purposeful play sounds and sharing this attitude sounds great but if everyone is going in different directions it can be difficult when people who do not have a life of purpose attitude and try to cause trouble for those of us who would like to just live a simple purposeful life.

Your ezines always appear to be very positive and is always a great thing.'

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My Reply:

Thanks again for your message. Let's see if I can be of assistance along your own Purposeful Path. The Life On Purpose Perspective suggests that a person's life purpose is an overarching meaning for their life -- that which you as a soul/spiritual being came here to earth to be and to experience.

Said another way, your life purpose is a way of being that you bring to the world and to all that you do. In fact, what you do becomes the way in which you express who you are -- i.e. your life purpose.

Now, about those 'other people' who aren't living on purpose. I suggest that we are all here to live on purpose and some of us are more awake and aware to this than others. I look to my garden for a metaphor. I notice that some of the tomatoes on the vine are small and green, others larger and still green and still others starting to turn red. The red tomatoes are no more a tomato than a green one, just further along in the process of life. The same is true for people along the process of living on purpose. Our job, us 'redder tomatoes' is to give room to others -- grant them being at whatever stage of development they are. It's the universal law of allowing, or said another way, accepting people as they are, while at the same time knowing who we are, and not holding our light under a bushel basket.

I've noticed that as I've continued to live my own life purpose I attract to me all the resources necessary to continue that process, and that includes other purposeful people. Since I've taken on the mission to assist others in clarifying their life purpose, I also attract 'green tomatoes in the process of turning red.' No one can really stop another person from living true to their life purpose since from the Life On Purpose Perspective a life purpose is a way of being. It is not my view that people are going 'in different directions.' We are all going in similar directions. We are just at different stages of development and going at our own rate, and then expressing where we are in the process of living on purpose in our own unique ways.

Thanks. Your allowing me to offer this to you has given me the opportunity to explore this further for myself and thus become clearer as well.

2005 Brad Swift of Life On Purpose Institute, Inc. This article can be reprinted freely online, as long as the entire article and this resource box are included.

Brad Swift

As a writer, I've written well over 300 magazine articles for a diverse assortment of magazines including Omni, Entrepreneur, New Age Journal, Yoga Journal, Utne Reader, Unity Magazine, Better Homes and Garden, Modern Maturity, and many others. I'm also a regular contributor to Veterinary Economics. (Yes, I still have a special place in my heart for animals.) My books include, WINNING THROUGH COACHING: Building Your Business Through Building Your Team and TRAVELING THE PURPOSEFUL PATH ? 6 Passages to an Inspired Life on Purpose.

As a public speaker, I lead programs on life purpose that are customized to fit such diverse groups as churches, spiritual centers, civic and professional organizations. The principles of these programs are also available in the 12-week teleclass, Living the Fulfilled Life. From these programs participants bring more focus to their life, experience a renewed sense of fulfillment, and lighten up and have more fun. Out of this focus, fulfillment, and fun emerges an ability to maintain balance in their life and a deeper appreciation for living.

One of my all time favorite ways of expressing my purpose is as a life purpose coach. I find the intimacy and creativity of one-on-one coaching to be a breathtaking experience. The select group of people who are my clients are very special to me, and with them I am constantly creating new facets of life purpose coaching that are then incorpoated into the other programs.

In short, the focus of my life is life purpose. From living on purpose, I've been blessed with an extraordinary life in which I am satisfied and fulfilled. My wife, Ann, and I share our redwood chalet home in the "Paradise Found" of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina with our daughter, Amber, and a menagerie of purposeful and playful pets.