Hey, Clarence! A little help over here?

My Sunday school class has been studying Rick Warren’s book “A Purpose Driven Life”. While I have many issues with the book (another column, another day) it has been thought provoking and has prompted me to thoroughly consider my purpose in life beyond reaching my family and career goals. This little experiment is a lot tougher than “It’s a Wonderful Life” makes it seem. Where’s that darn Clarence when you need some help? I don’t think I’m anywhere close to discovering my purpose, but I am weeding out some of chaff that prevents me from seeing my purpose. That’s progress, I suppose. Self examination is good, even if we don’t always like what we see.

A classmate from Sunday school sent me an article about finding your purpose. The author described an exercise he used to determine that his purpose was “to live consciously and courageously, to resonate with love and compassion, to awaken the great spirits within others, and to leave this world in peace.” How beautiful is that? I can’t thing of a way to make that statement more complete. I’m tempted to stop my own soul searching and just follow that statement. You can’t go wrong with courage, compassion and peace. I will continue this journey inside my heart but I don’t think I’ll be disappointed if I don’t discover my purpose soon because I have his idea to fall back on.