I am blank. Is my purpose to help others? When I was young I used to run away a lot. Everything scared me. When I got a little older and had thicker skin, I bugged people to be my friend or to love me because I felt so unloved. I wasn't as scared but my rage was intense and it really scared people away, especially the people I loved the most. In retrospect, I understand this was my way of feeling power rather than complete apathy (or depression).

Years have gone by since I have felt that enraged, so I guess I have grown! It is also possible that since leaving the social circuit, mostly because my job and studies have been so demanding, I've become more connected with myself. In truth, I know that I am more connected with the universe because I believe I am. It's that simple.

Why do we all think that our purpose has to involve helping others? Maybe that's not my purpose at all. Maybe I just want to get rich and travel and not have to put up with the crap at work anymore (very short time purpose). Maybe it's as simple as I just want to have some fun. Oh, to wake up in the morning completely looking forward to my day. No longer thinking of my days being separate entities, or the Monday through Friday world we've all been conditioned to live in. I want to live outside of that. I want to be truly free and I want to help other people be free, too.

The Industrial Age vs. the Knowledge Age

To get an understanding of my own purpose, I have to look at where I am now and have been for most of my adult life, which has been in the workplace. When did this whole 9-5 thing start anyway? If I were to research it, I would probably discover that is the 40 hour workweek came about in response to childhood labor laws.

I am certain it was worse for people at the beginning of the industrial age when they didn't even get to experience childhood because they were working all the time and dying all the time because the work was so dangerous. That's why we still have in our heads that being rich is bad, because in our recent human history, the richest people became rich by enslaving the masses to do their labor.

Today, technology has in many realms replaced labor. Thankfully, laws have been created to protect children. But the chains still hold us to our desks, although, again, thankfully, even this is changing. Stephen R. Covey did an excellent job of describing this change in the 8th principle. We're moving (or have moved) from the industrial age to the knowledge age. What he wrote really resonated with me. On page 76 he says, "The key to creating passion in your life is to find your unique talents and your special role and purpose in the world." I'm still trying to understand my purpose.

I have been working in the information technology field for the past 10 years. Most days, it feels like working in an arena where everyone wants to be the master controller, rather than the facilitator of information. People cannot agree on anything and nothing works they way they think it should and everyone expects perfection and too many of us go home everyday frustrated and sometimes angry. We feel alienated by the technology, let down by the technology because it can't solve the most basic human problem (if it is a problem), which is to agree with each other.

It's truly systems theory at it's worst. Most days I feel extremely frustrated with my job because I have been thrust into a position where I'm managing an "enterprise framework" solution. What a laugh. We're trying to do this with a technology but on the larger scale we do very little to really bring the players together. It's not an easy task, there are too many people separated by too many boundaries and distances.

Because I am who I am (and maybe this helps me understand my purpose), I try to bring people together and I try to facilitate solutions and agreements, but I almost always end up frustrated in the process.

Within technology, coupled with a demanding work environment, it's complicated enough without someone coming along and telling you that you have to do something a different way just so that you conform. It's really no wonder people don't agree.

And when we look at this on a broader scale, people are dying all over the world because not only can't people agree with each other, which in most cases is perfectly ok, but they believe in their heart of hearts (if they have one) that if someone doesn't agree with them they must be killed. It's mind-boggling.

Where is my purpose in all of this? I don't know yet. I am a good facilitator but the odds are against me in my current job. I don't want to facilitate in a void, where people feel the need to posture their ego every day and get offended and hold grudges and just generally not work in harmony with others. Since this is my experience in the workplace, I have made a goal to take an early retirement at the first opportunity.

Maybe after I leave the workplace I will find my true purpose. I will have time and energy to know my purpose. I will have time and energy to create myself, or just to be myself and no longer wake up in the morning with my mind full of thoughts about how I can't please all of competing voices shouting at me to do it their way and to get it done by Wednesday.