In my Positive Psychology certification course, we had to name our life’s purpose. It is clear to me – very clear to me – that my purpose is to love. To love others. To love myself. To spread and share and rejoice in more and more love in this world. I firmly believe it’s what we need and what will heal us (which we need now even more than ever).
My purpose is also joy. Deep-hearted, full-bodied, life-sustaining joy. To find reasons to be joyful. To spread joy as well. To see the beauty in the world around me and rejoice in it. Savor it. Bask in it. Call it out and affirm it. (Have I mentioned that I’ve seen yellow birds – many yellow birds – every day? It’s as if they’re seeking me out.)
There are so many reasons to be joyful each and every day – even the hard days. And there are so many reasons to miss the reasons to be joyful. I have to train my heart and soul and senses to look for joy and to notice it. I have to remind my mind that even just a bit of joy will fuel my heart and soul.
I live to love. I live to connect. I live for joy and laughter and beauty. I notice the sun dappling on the trees. The bluest sky and yellowest birds. The snuggle with my son. The time with my friends. The ease in my heart and soul.
There is joy and love abounding, if I open myself to it. I’m going to look for it and delight in it. To luxuriate in it and wallow in it and celebrate it.
Joy and love are my highest purpose.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, and please share this post with others if it resonates with you!
About Joy, I always go back to Miss Kim’s red book, Divine Principle and its Application:
There is neither vitality in life nor stimulating joy in man’s heart until he has a mate whom he can love with his whole being and by whom he is truly loved. This is why when a man and woman love one another they feel joy and vitality. Also, when parents have a child who reflects their whole love, they feel great joy. Man’s desire for joy is derived from God.
The Almighty Creator is a God of Heart, and the essential desire of heart is joy. How is joy produced? Joy is felt when a subject projects his inner and outer nature into a substantial object and perceives his own nature in the object’s response. As long as an artist merely conceives an idea without expressing it, his joy is not fulfilled. But when his creative idea is perfectly expressed in a work, then he feels great satisfaction. Likewise, as long as the Word, Logos, the divine idea, remained with God, His ideal could not be fulfilled. But the Word became man, a visible image of God. Projecting His whole nature into His work, God produced man to manifest His invisible Self in the form of a visible and tangible image. Thus God created man in order to feel joy.
Furthermore, joy comes from love, and love is never complete unless it is reciprocated. Love cannot be reciprocated unless there are both subject and object. Therefore, God, the Subject, needs an object for give and take of love. God wanted to express His infinite love to man and to receive man’s full response. Even for God, there is neither joy nor vitality in life if there is no object to love and to be loved by. A child is a masterpiece of his parents’ creation. Because he is the ample fulfillment of his parents’ creative desire and the most perfect reflection of their whole nature, a child brings to them great joy. In other words, parents find in their child perfect resemblance, which provides natural rapport for their abundant give and take of love. Even deeper give and take of love is possible between a husband and wife who develop perfect rapport. They can then feel even greater joy. As the crowning creation God made man in His image. God’s inner and outer nature were projected into man, His substantial object. Thus man inwardly and outwardly resembles God most closely in all creation. The relationship of God to man is sometimes like that of father and son and is sometimes even closer, like that of husband and wife. Hence, man can reason with God. Above all, man is capable of living in joy and love with God. Thus, God can have complete rapport with man and full give and take with him. God intended to live with man forever in the highest joy through perpetual give and take of love.
However, until His object, man, responds fully and offers joy, the action of give and take cannot be complete and God’s purpose cannot be fulfilled. No subject can feel joy by itself, for the feeling must be stimulated by an object. If man had not fallen, all men would be sons and daughters of God. Man would then be divine in that he would most closely resemble God. Man is given the nature and capacity to respond to God’s love and return joy to Him. Therefore, to develop this nature and exercise this capacity fully is the purpose of man’s life. Man also receives the power of life and joy of love through the action of give and take with God, who is the ultimate source of life, energy, happiness, and all ideal
Even the ponderous black book finally get around to it.
Exposition of DP: The ultimate purpose of the universe, with human beings at its center, is to return joy to God. (Chaoter 1, 3.1)
As has been discussed in the “Principle of Creation”, God’s purpose in creating man was to feel joy upon seeing His goal realized. Therefore, the purpose of man’s life is to return joy to God. In what manner, then, can man return joy to God and manifest perfectly the original value of his existence?
(Chapter 3 Consumation of Human History)
Wow Rick. Needless to say, perhaps, I haven’t thought this or read this in a very long time. Thank you for sharing!