Edith Yeung

Everything in life has a purpose.
A mirror
A bottle of water
A telephone
A toothbrush
A fire alarm
A light
A pair of reading glasses

It is very hard to find anything in life that doesn’t serve a particular purpose.

Now you might think… ‘Can this be possibly true? I have certainly encountered many useless things in my life. Certain things just seem to serve no purpose in certain situations.’

You are correct! Certain things do serve no purpose in ‘certain situations’, but serve a purpose fully in some other situations. When certain things are placed in the wrong place at the wrong time, they immediately lost their original purpose and become useless.

Can you imagine giving your mother a toothbrush when she is reading? Or giving your boss a mirror when he is talking? Or giving a stranger a tree when he is running away from a fire? You know these certain things (toothbrush, mirror or tree) do serve other purposes, but just not in these situations. I hope you get my point…

This idea also applied to us as people. Many of us are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. We are always busy for no reason. We are going 95 miles per hour everyday running errands, going to work or rushing for school. Our life is taken up by activities that suck up our energy. Have you ever felt exhausted after a long day of work?

You were not just tried. You were exhausted because you spent all day doing a lot of things that serve no meaning to your true purpose. You were like a fish swimming against the current. It is exhausting when you have to work that hard. I know… I have been there and moved on.

Now you might say, ‘Why would a fish be so silly as to swim against the current if it’s so obvious that the current is going the other way?’ The problem is that it is often really not that obvious especially when everybody else around you is also swimming against the current. Everyone else is doing it therefore you do it too. You decided to take the so called ‘easy’ route because it is a ‘proven’ route. Just because it is proven doesn’t mean it is the right path for you. Nobody (including you) realizes that you are NOT just like everybody else.

Now you might say: ‘Is having a purpose really that important? I am doing great with my life even without having a purpose.’

I have no doubt you are doing great! I had exactly the same question. Before finding out my purpose, my corporate career was going great, I made good investments, and I had great friends. But I was curious… What if there was more out there? What if there was another world that I just didn’t know about?

It is like being in the movie ‘The Matrix’, where the main character Neo was asked to take the blue pill or the red pill. If he took the blue pill, he would find out the truth. If he took the red pill, his memory would be forever erased and he would go back to his comfortable and normal life.In a split second, Neo decided to take the blue pill because he was curious and he needed to know. Which pill would you choose?

All of us are like ships in the ocean:

Some of us would forever stay in the dock because we are afraid of the sea.
Some of us would forever stay in the dock ‘wanting’ to know what our purpose is but don’t want to do anything to discover it.
Some of us are very capable of starting our journey but have no clue what the destination is and are not interested in finding out. This kind of ships easily drifts. When a big storm comes, these ships would usually change course and go somewhere else. It wasn’t a big issue for them because they weren’t going anywhere anyway.
Some of us start our journey without knowing our destination, but continue to hard work to discover our destination and eventually find it. In contrast, this kind of ship would withstand any storm and continue its course towards the purpose because there is only one destination in mind.

What kind of ships are you?

Finding your purpose is not easy. For some people, it takes minutes. For some people, it takes years. But the good news is you don’t necessarily need to find it right away. As long as you have a mind open to find it, your purpose will reveal itself to you.

We are all like a cocoon which will eventually turn into butterfly, but for sure it takes a little bit of time.

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