These days, everyone has a voice and everyone has the perfect way to do a thing; and the noise is really deafening.

The internet is probably the worst thing that has happened to this generation because everyone is simply out there pushing opinions about the best way to do it.

It is quite frustrating being at the receiving end…because right now, we have more than three billion right ways to live on earth. Shouldn’t there just be “the” way?

Why do we do it all? Why do we all want to be at the top and the ones calling the shots? What’s the essence of all the clutter and the hassle and the pain?

I think it’s time we redefine the meaning of purpose.
The foundations of purpose came from people who had dreams of what they wanted the world to look like and they set out to achieve their dreams.
Slowly, all these have been reduced to beautifully crafted selfish ambitions that all boil down to money and the ability to influence people.

Dare I ask why?

Why do you want to be the billionaire? Why do you want to wield so much power? If this is not figured out and fitted to be true, nature has a beautiful way of never letting you get zip on the face of the earth.

Can we stop being creatures of ambition and begin to be creatures of the human race?

Church folks mask around ‘kingdom’ but I’ve realized, most times, it is bullcrap because deep seated within is beautifully crafted self-ambitions.

Can we really step back and ask the real questions and then maybe, we’d realize that it truly is about making the world a better place and not making stars of ourselves or self-made people.

It’s about people-made people!

Otherwise, how else do you explain Mahatma Gandhi?

More than ever, I’ve felt my conversations go from deep connections that have eternal value in cosmos to chit chat that happens for the sake of respect for human dignity. Conversations that no longer go beyond the words but stop at the screen of the receiver.

We’ve got to get back to the real world and the true meaning of humanity and the true essence of purpose.

Purpose is not making a name, purpose is not crafting a niche, and purpose is not clouding in self. Purpose is about making life better for everyone because you see a need and then you fill it.

But fast-forward to 2018, purpose today is about staying up all night to craft a vision statement and a roadmap to how you become the best version of you and get people to revere you, get you to make money and get you to live the life.

Notice how much “you” there is in all that?

We’ve reduced purpose to 0s and 1s and it’s either you’re this or you’re that. I wonder how depraved and myopic the world would have been if Da Vinci only focused on painting or only focused on engineering.

I think purpose is about you as a person. It’s beyond what you do, it’s beyond how you look, and it’s about the deeper things that represent who you really are.

What is left of you when all else is stripped? What do we see pumping in your heart when all else is taken away? What do you live for? If we strip your soul bare, what will we find?

I’ve been having sleepless nights and questioning all the rules we’ve created for ourselves. The traps we built for ourselves. The fears we built for ourselves. The standards we built for ourselves. Keeping up with the joneses.

But here’s the big question: Who are the joneses?
Get a 2’1, get married before 30, get rich before 35, have kids in the first year of marriage. But where is the rule book that says you will die if things don’t happen this way.

My life is my choices reflected on earth, so is yours. By the standards of men, Jesus failed! He was a carpenter, heck! He didn’t even make it to 35. But then that’s what it’s all about. He knew what he was bringing to the table. Know what you bring to the table so the standards of men don’t shake you.

The truth is this; and you can choose to believe otherwise, but we have defined purpose largely upside down. Searching within, relentlessly has always been how to dig out your life’s mission.

Unfortunately, today, we read a book, define our purpose and then begin to do. What better way to program yourself for disaster?
Quit the world!
Get a shell so all you can hear is yourself. Hear what you have to say and what you bring to the table for mankind. We’ve listened to the Joneses for too long and we’ve lost our originality.

I’m not the next Warren Buffet, heck I’m not the next Mary Kay. I’m me. Maybe we’ve listened to too many lies!
It is said that if you listen to mentors, you avoid mistakes but what if that’s what we’re missing? What if it’s the mistakes that make us? What if our quest for innocence is why we can never bring anything new to the table?

And there are a thousand versions of us trying to solve the same problem because we gleaned the experiences of the same man…
I dare to propose to you that mistakes make men and if you don’t have your own mistakes, you don’t have your own story and there will be nothing you will offer to the world that will change the world.

If truly your purpose doesn’t come from first doing, you might as well tend to the direction of the ten thousand others who have read that book of that purpose driven guy that changed that aspect of the human race.

I’ve watched people pitch innovative ideas to investors and the people with the best ideas are those that bore those ideas from unique personal experiences and not borrowed experience.

I dare to tell you that if you have not found purpose, don’t craft it. LIVE.

Dare to be human!
Dare to make the wild run!
Dare to make the mistakes!
Dare to live out experiences!
And maybe, just maybe, you will finally live a live that is worthy of calling purpose driven because the men who proposed these ideas to us did not exactly have the manuals they have created for the masses to ‘find’ purpose.

You can choose to be closed-minded and say ‘haa! You don’t believe in mentorship?’ Or you can choose to see that there’s a balance to life and there’s a difference between seeking advice and avoiding the true elements of life.

Don’t take to heart every single word I just typed, else, I’d be one of the three billion people telling you what to do.

Your life is yours and I won’t help you live it even if I could. Start now.
Choose.
Choose to accept or reject what you just read. Don’t think because the words are not misspelled, the meaning isn’t.
Do examine again, Why do we do it all?

I wrote this because I felt the burden to pour my heart out. WHY DID YOU READ IT? WHY DO YOU HATE IT? WHY DO YOU LIKE IT? WHY DON’T YOU KNOW WHY?

THE END.
By

Abraham Audu