R2 Thoughts for You Do You Know Your Purpose and Worth?
For the last nine years, I’ve had a fundamental question in my mind. What is my purpose? In other words, does my life have an important purpose? This question arose quite unexpectedly. You see, I retired nine years ago and before that, my purpose, though not explicit in my mind, was my profession. Before my profession, my purpose was being a student and preparing for the profession. But when I retired, I discovered that I was confused about the apparent lack of a “sense of purpose.” I remember telling anyone who asked what retirement was like, that I found it most difficult to find a sense of purpose. I guess I had never thought purposefully about purpose until then. “Purposefully about purpose” – I love that statement. :-)
OK, so what is my purpose, now that I have had nine years to think about it? That’s still a good question. I want my life to have an important purpose, and I am the only one who can determine what that purpose is. Looking back on my life, I now realize that I sincerely believed, that being a good teacher – my profession for most of my working life – was an important purpose. So now, what is my purpose? I didn’t realize before retirement, that I would need to rethink my purpose when I retired. When I bring up this issue with fellow retirees, I often get a confusing look. Some, if not all, seem to know what their purpose is, OR they don’t think it is important enough to even consider.
Before I go any further, I should point out a possible point of confusion. I have often confused purpose with worth. I now realize, that it is important to NOT look outside of yourself for worth. At the beginning of my professional career, I would often judge my worth by how well I was doing in my profession. That, as I see it now, was a mistake. When we look outside ourselves to feel worthy, we are creating a dilemma where we must constantly work for approval, acceptance, control and yes, even love, in order to feel worthy. We then make our self-worth dependent upon a career, an income, our appearance, our family, our neighbors, and the list goes on and on and on ….. If we lose our job, or our appearance (due to looking or feeling older), or our family grows older and moves, or our neighbors move, then there goes our worth. Hopefully, you can see where I’m going with this; your worth must come from your inner self. In fact, we all have an inner value, and it is there for each person to find for her/himself.
I believe a sense of purpose helps me live a more satisfying life. It is important for me to give meaning to what I do and NOTÂ for what I do to give me meaning. Therefore, what is my purpose? My purpose is almost the same as it was before I started my profession — to be a student that is preparing for tomorrow.
Have you ever had, or are you currently having a problem with purpose or worth? I’m interested in what you think.
R2 Thoughts for You 
Purpose i have a hard time latching on to the concept see when I see my purpose to be a young 11 year old girl a student and a child.I rellize I ask myself why. See this is a very uncommen thing. My peers do there work and come home eat ,sleep poop,play,chill etc. See i tend to ask why, why should I or how can I improve. This leads me to a whole different subject on religoin i found myself faced with a purpose. Maybe this purpose is based on jesus.Was I Katie Shneider made with a purpose beyond my compreentoin?Then how to I fofill this so called purpose leading to a destony.Now i feel maybe people dont fofill a purpose but just focuss on the destony wich makes me reconsider even questoining. see this I am already tangled up in.Now tell me if I am correct Purpose x worth = destony.
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