Three Cups of Tea

One of the questions I always ask my clients is what is your definite purpose in life? It seems for most people a hard question to answer. Some people tell me all they want to be is happy. I explain that they are already happiness, and ask them the question again. Some tell me money and I ask the question again. What is your definite purpose in life? Then they tell me they do not know.

Author James Allen James Allen Home Page says that ‘until thought is linked with purpose, there is no intelligent accomplishment.” You must decide what you want. You must decide on your definite purpose. Only you can decide that. Most people go through life trying to find their purpose, only to realize that it can be whatever they decide it to be. It is an intention, resolution or determination. Purpose is the focus of your attention and attention is the creative energy that brings about your reality. Purpose is a settled determination and comes about from a decision. You can make a difference in the world. What is your purpose?

Lance Armstrong offers a particular inspiring example. “The truth is if you asked me to choose between winning the Tour de France and cancer. I would choose cancer. Odd as it sounds, I would rather have the title of cancer survivor than winner of the tour, because of what it has done for me as a human being, a man, a husband, a son and a father…The one thing the illness has convinced me of beyond all doubt-more than any experience I’ve had as an athlete-is that we are much better than we know. We have unrealized capacities that sometimes only emerge in crisis. So if there is a purpose to the suffering that is cancer, I think it must be this; it’s meant to improve us.”

You can go to Lance Armstrong Foundation: Home and learn about what he is doing with the wisdom and knowledge he has learned to help and inspire other people.

I recently was given a book by a friend of mine, entitled Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of Tea - About the Book

The book is part mountaineering memoir, part puff profile, but largely a testament to a generosity that transcends politics and religion, Three Cups of Tea shares the story of a consummate outdoorsman-turned-infidel saint. Separated from his expedition while scaling K2 in 1993, a moribund Greg Mortenson staggered into a Himalayan shantytown in northern Pakistan. Nursed back to health, Mortenson pledged to build a school for a village where sticks and dirt were used to practice multiplication tables. He has since erected 55 schools across the Muslim mountain region, amid brushes with local crooks, kidnappers, a salty Swiss philanthropist, Tom Brokaw, and the Taliban.

Greg Mortenson has a purpose for his life and Tom Brokaw had this to say about him. “Three Cups of Tea is one of the most remarkable adventure stories of our time. Greg Mortenson’s dangerous and difficult quest to build schools in the wildest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only a thrilling read, it’s proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world.”

Greg has this to say. “I do it because I care about kids. Fighting terror is may be seventh or eighth on my list of priorities. But working over there, I’ve learned a few things. I’ve learned that terror doesn’t happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren’t being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.”

This is Greg Mortenson’s advice. “Everybody looks for something that you can look back at, to see you’ve really accomplished something for future generations. You may not have to go clear to the Himalayas, but you can still make a big difference where you live. .. You have to make that first step.”

So what would you do if you knew you could not fail? What is your purpose in life?

All great people started out small. Take Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Jr. When you look back at their history, almost without exception they were nobodies. Nobody! Gandhi was just a mediocre attorney who got thrown off a train into the dust by the British because he was Indian. Mother Theresa was just an ordinary nun.

Again, I ask “what would you do if you knew you could not fail?” What is your purpose in life?

If you fail to determine and decide on your definite purpose, everything else will feel wrong. Your purpose gives you direction in life. It is why you get out of bed in the morning and it is the fuel that will transform your life. It could be you might want to work with children, help the environment, cure malaria or build schools. Without a clear purpose, you will wander through life, not sure which way to go, and usually living someone else’s dream. Your purpose should be to do something that you love. When you have your purpose, everything else will fall into place. You will focus less on what is wrong and more on what is right. You will be happier.

Your purpose may be something you would be willing to trade your life for. The psychologist Alfred Adler once said, “I am grateful for the idea that has used me.” Martin Luther King said, “If you do not have a life worth dying for, you are not living.” Mr. King The King Center died so others could live. What is your purpose? We live in a world of abundance, where you can have anything your heart desires. There is nothing standing between you and your desires except lack of definite purpose and the plans that will derive from it.