It’s interesting that the month of January 2019 was a month where I did as much free work as paid work. The first free assignment was to provide a keynote address at the new year celebration of a leading organisation in the insurance industry to inspire the staff of over 1000, who were gathered for the celebration, on the 1st of January. The second free assignment was to continue to help the administrators, parents and past pupils of my alma mater, St Anthony’s Collage, to take forward the strategic plan that I facilitated in formulating one year ago. The third free assignment was to help an important arm of the government of Sri Lanka to develop the leadership of a very important category of officials in becoming better leaders and making a better contribution for the development of the country.

This free work, the paid assignments and family time during the first week of the month celebrating the new year holidays, consumed most of my time resulting in me not giving much time for my doctoral inquiry in to the notion of ‘purposefulness’. The doctorate is an important aspect of my agenda this year, which requires me to allocate quality time.
I am not sure if I found these free assignments or if these assignments found me. Part of my ‘purpose statement’ is to ‘say yes to opportunities that come my way to sow the seeds of ‘purpose’ in others’. Since I reflect on my purpose every day, I may have attracted these opportunities. On the other hand, since I keep reminding myself of my purpose every morning, my Reticular Activating System (RAS) might have made me notice these opportunities. The way I got these opportunities seem unimportant when I consider the passion with which I accepted, designed and delivered these projects.

The joy I received when doing this work, because of my perception of the value I was adding to so many people and the direct feedback received from the participants, cannot be measured with money. The first question for reflection in ‘the purpose finder’ process is; what makes me most joyous? Therefore, since this work of ‘giving’ provided me immense joy, it seems as if giving of my God given talent to help others find the notion of ‘purpose’ and helping them see a glimpse of their purpose seems like purposeful work to me.

I wonder if the use of the word ‘giving’ is appropriate because I cannot give anything that I don’t own. I believe that we don’t own anything on earth, because we are only temporary guardians of the assets of this planet; it is our responsibility to take care of such assets and make them better for future generations. Therefore, I hope that in my attempting to live a purposeful life, I am contributing to a better world by sowing the seeds of ‘purposeful living’ in the minds and hearts of those I am fortunate enough to meet during this journey of life.

This new phase in this series on ‘purposefulness’, which I started last month, is dedicated to address living issues and struggles related to purposeful living. I hope this short blog post inspires you to give and find ‘purpose’ through the act of giving.

I wish you purposeful living!