I have so many thoughts swirling in my mind as I write this evening. Part of me is tired and wants to spin the wheel and pick a blog. The two random number generators offered two different numbers and both possibly entries are pretty good. Another part of me wants to try to pull together some of the swirling thoughts and attempt to make them comprehensible enough so readers can make sense of them. Whatever you will read here will represent the resolution of that dilemma, and you might not even know how the conversation will unfold in my head: all you’ll see is the result.
Many years ago I started writing a book in my head called “The Place Just Right,” taken from a line in the Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts.” The theme of this as yet unwritten book is essentially about finding one’s passion and life purpose, “the place just right,” where you know in your bones that you are exactly where you are meant to be. I wanted to write about it for similar reasons that I became a life coach and why I’ve worked with high school and college students for nearly 30 years working in higher education: because I want to aid people in discovering who they are meant to be, what they are meant to be doing, and how to move in the direction of being and doing it. It’s my version of “right livelihood,” though it bears no resemblance to the Buddhist principle. For me it means finding and doing work that’s right for you, that you are uniquely suited for. This is something I’ve not fully achieved in my lifetime, though I’ve gotten a little closer each year.
But today I came to a slightly different way of thinking about what it means to be in the place just right from the perspective of living in the moment. Perhaps the place just right isn’t necessarily just about finding and fulfilling one’s life purpose, but about fulfilling a purpose in this moment or for this time. Today I was in a conversation with a colleague about some matters related to the work I’m doing in my job. For a moment the observer side of me stepped back and watched myself in the conversation (I know it sounds a little weird, but stay with me…) What I saw was a person (myself) engaged in spirited, impassioned dialogue about planning and visioning and exploring possibilities. My body language, the tone and tenor of my speech, the sense of aliveness that I felt about what I was talking about in that moment was very real to me. And it wasn’t simply being excited about the subject matter: in fact at times the topics we were discussing might have been frustrating and irritating rather than engaging. What created the sense of aliveness was the absolutely certain feeling in that moment that I was exactly where I was supposed to be–I was in the place just right.
This is it! I said inside my own head. Though I didn’t recognize it instantly as it was happening, I did shortly after the conversation had ended. I had one of those moments of absolute (a word I don’t use lightly) clarity in which I was completely in alignment with my purpose. Is it my life purpose? I don’t know. What I do know is that it was my purpose in that moment and I continue to feel a sense of destiny (ugh, I know…I don’t like sounding so dramatic and “whoo-whoo” but it’s the right word) about where I am right now, what I am doing, who I am working with, and what the possibilities are. Even as I write this, the sense of rightness remains.
I am also laughing and shaking my head, reminding myself how fleeting such feelings can be. I could go into the office tomorrow and get totally knocked off my moorings, in fact I probably will. But that won’t change the knowing I have that for this time, at this moment in my life, I am where I am supposed to be. I am in the place just right. It is my life purpose in this moment, and for that I am most exceedingly grateful.
Interestingly, when I spun the wheel of the random number generator this evening, it landed on Day 194, which happens to be about finding one’s passion, about pursuing one’s dreams and in complete alignment with what I’ve written here. I recommend a re-read! I am grateful to have received the insight and wisdom that came to me today. These are the moments of clarity I prayed and longed for during my terrible, awful, no good, really bad year. It was coming, it just took a while to get here and though it didn’t show up when I wanted it, it is definitely beginning to show up now.
If you find yourself in the searching place, uncertain about what your purpose is in this moment or any other moment, be patient with yourself. It’s like a lot of other things: if you chase after it, it seems to flee that much faster. If you’re patient and let the answers come to you and you remain open to hearing them, wisdom and clarity about your purpose will show up. I believe it and what’s lost to you if you believe it too? My wish for each of us is that “by turning, turning we come ’round right.”
Simple Gifts written by Joseph Brackett, 1848 ‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain’d,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.
