Have you ever thought about what the world wants from you, as opposed to what you want to give?
When you think about your life purpose, is the focus mainly on what you can supply? Does your purpose stem from what you desire to give, such as sharing music if you like music or coaching people if you like coaching?
Alternatively, do you focus on the demand side, but from a broad perspective? Do you pay attention to what the world needs in general? Do you feel you should be a peacemaker because the world needs peace? Do you feel you should wake people up because the world needs people to wake up? Do you want to be a teacher because the world needs education?
Consider that the world doesn’t need you to change it. Perhaps the world is fine the way it is.
When I was younger, I’d often interpret my purpose as needing to do something for the world. I needed to give my gifts to the world, or I needed to help the world make some changes, or both. I had to find a worldly need that I could help fulfill.
But when I tried to act in such a manner, it felt uninspired. The motivation wasn’t there. It looked good on paper though. It seemed noble.
When I’ve enjoyed the most purposeful shifts in my life, and the inspiration was strong, it felt like I was answering a calling. But it wasn’t a calling to satisfy a need or to share a gift. It was a calling to explore. If the world needed anything from me, it only needed me to help it explore. It didn’t need me to help it solve problems, to heal, to transform itself, etc.
The world sends us plenty of invitations to go explore. But we over-complicate these invitations. We layer the simple process of exploration with extra neediness. We want money. We want relationships. We want fitness.
It’s like being invited to a wedding and stressing yourself out with questions. What am I going to wear? Who else will be there? What gift should I bring? The details will work themselves out in good time. The neediness is inappropriate and misses the point of the event.
Many proclaim: I need to make money, create a fit body, attract a beautiful relationship, give back to the world, and then maybe when I retire, I’ll spend a little time exploring the things I want to explore.
But if we could just go explore and stop creating stuckness, we’d find that the road itself is abundant in resources, our bodies are already adequate, and the best relationships flow into our lives when we’re in motion anyway. We gain the prerequisites by not treating them as prerequisites.
When you catch yourself layering neediness on top of exploration with endlesshave-tos, pause and ask yourself, What type of exploration am I delaying?
When you have all your needs satisfied and you’re ready to begin living without neediness, what will you do then? Why not do that now, and let your needs be satisfied along the way?
When you’re needy the world seems needy too. If you have needs, then everyone else must have needs, and so the entire world must be a needy place indeed. Your life becomes a bastion of neediness — what you need from yourself, what you need from the world, what people need from you, what needs are unfulfilled in the world, etc.
But what if this neediness is just an idea? What if you’re projecting neediness throughout your reality — unnecessarily?
What if there are no prerequisites? What if you don’t have to do anything else first? What if you could just explore now? What if through the process of exploration, you ended up satisfying your needs too? You probably wouldn’t even notice the needs then; they’d be non-issues. You’d be too immersed in the exploration.
When we explore wholeheartedly and stop obsessing over our needs, we answer life’s calling with a simple yes instead of a yeah, but… And life responds with here you go! instead of okay, we’ll wait till you’re ready.