Quotes About Purpose

The Bible tells a story. A story that isn't over. A story that is still being told. A story that we have a part to play in.

What would it look like for you to approach tomorrow with a sense of honor and privilege, believing that you have work to do in the world, that it matters, that it's needed, that you have a path and you're working your craft?

The great Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, "I did not ask for success, I asked for wonder."17

It's not about getting rid of desire. It's about giving ourselves to bigger and better and more powerful desires. What are you channeling your energies into? If they don't go into a few, select, disciplined pursuits that you are passionate about and are willing to give your life to, then they'll dissipate into all sorts of urges and cravings that won't even begin to bring joy that the one thing could.

Your ikigai is a work in progress because you are a work in progress. Knowing your ikigai, then, takes patience and insight, and courage, and honesty.

When you say "yes" to your life and your path and your work in the world, you are entering into this mystery of creation, a mystery in which everybody starts with a blank page, and "everybody" includes you. Now, let's pause and take a breath. You've been given this gift of life. You were not given his gift or her gift. You were given your gift.

The poet wants us to know that God is looking for partners, people to help co-create the world.

The Japanese have a word for what gets you out of bed in the morning: they call it your ikigai. Your ikigai is that sense you have when you wake up that this day matters, that there are new experiences to be had, that you have work to do, a contribution to make. Sometimes this is referred to as your calling, other times your vocation, your destiny, your path. Your ikigai is your reason for being.

We are always in the endless process of figuring out our ikigai. Your ikigai is a web of work and family and play and how you spend your time, what you give your energies to, what you say "yes" to, what you say "no" to, what new challenges you take on, things that come your way that you never wanted or planned for or know what to do with— your ikigai is a work in progress because you are a work in progress.

Life is too short to help make a world you don't want to live in.)

When we take ourselves too seriously it gets in the way of the thing that we are so seriously trying to do.

We create these identities around our roles and titles and job descriptions and achievements. They give our lives shape and form and meaning and definition. Ever so gradually over time our understanding of ourselves gets shaped by what we do and what we've done. We cling, we grasp, we hold tightly to these identities.

The one thing that unites the people I know who are on satisfying and meaningful paths is that they kept trying things, kept exploring, kept pursuing new opportunities, kept searching until they discovered their ikigai. And then from there they never stop figuring it out because they understand how absolutely crucial this is in creating a life worth living.

When you pursue your path, exploring the possibilities as you search for your ikigai, pay careful attention to things that make you angry and get you all riled up and provoke you to say, Someone should do something about that!!! The someone may be you.

Getting a paycheck for doing that thing you love may actually ruin it.

There's a good chance your ikigai will change over time. Relax, this is normal.

To be here is to embrace the spiritual challenge of your ikigai, doing the hard work of figuring out who you are and what you have to give the world. This is work we all have to do, because we're all a piece of work, in the endless process of exploring our ikigai.

Embracing your ikigai will always require tremendous faith and courage.

I AM is less noun, more verb. Less a destination and more a direction.

What you do with your life is fundamentally creative work. The kind of life you lead, what you do with your time, how you spend your energies—it's all part of how you create your life.

Which takes us back to this creation poem, which grounds all creativity in the questions that are asked of all of us: What kind of world are we making? Which always leads to the pressing personal question: What kind of life am I creating?

Sabbath is when you spend a day remembering that efficiency and production are not God's highest goals for your life. Joy is.

because having too many options can easily lead to being stuck, disconnected from your life because there's no pressing need to do anything.

Now what? I realize now that those two words were forming a prayer. Now what? In a visceral way, prayer is naming what matters to you. Now what? is what mattered to me.