I dreamed of winning the Nobel Prize when I was in college. It did not seem to be so lofty at the time. After all I was with the best minds of my time, the kids who ate Friedrich Nietzsche for breakfast. I set my goals to working for five years to send my younger brother to school, going to graduate school and then on to winning the Nobel in Chemistry and or Physiology and Medicine.
My father died a few months before I graduated from college. It was more traumatic to me than anything I could have imagined. I buried the pain. I did not even cry at his funeral.
I knew he still would have wanted everything else for me and I focused on all the plans I had made. They did not pan out. It turned out I was only meant to work for two years, apply for graduate school in only one school, got accepted and left my job. I crossed continents and for the first time I was away from my family. It was a shock to my system to move to another country.
In graduate school, while getting my Master's degree, it was not as I envisioned it to be. My supervisor insisted that I wash my own dishes so I stayed till 2 am in the laboratory sterilizing the used glassware, cooling them and setting them in the dishwasher so that I would have glassware to use the following morning.
This experience was entirely new to me. I had people who prepared everything I needed for my experiments while I was working, so really all I had to do was show up and do the experiments. I felt that. I had a hard time and although I so missed my parents and wanted to go home to the Philippines. It was not an option. I could not go home without a degree. It would disgraceful not for me but for my mother. I could not do it.
And then a miracle! In graduate school I fell in love, got married and forgot all about my dream. I only wanted to raise a family of my own. The Nobel was no longer a desire. While I was married, having nothing else to do while waiting for my ex husband to finish his degree, I enrolled in the Ph.D. program. This time I had fun. My studies were always second to my role as a wife and I simply enjoyed being in school. And then my marriage fell apart
And then my son came. My whole world was turned upside down. I had been divorced only for over a year, not done with my dissertation and all alone.
In all these times I counted on the grace and kindnesses of all the people around me. They were heaven sent.
I spent many years trying to reconcile everything that had happened in my life. That quest was almost always wrought with pain. My ego was so thick, I could hardly see through it.
It is only a few years before writing this that I have discovered my own soul aligned purpose. I was not born to win the Nobel in Chemistry or in Physiology and Medicine. I am here only so that my son can be raised the way he was raised. Not a very lofty purpose, but nevertheless, real.
Once I have accepted this with everything else that it implied, life did not become easier but it did become more spacious.
I could finally appreciate the warmth of the sun on my face and the brush of cold wind on my cheeks, not from the ski resorts in Colorado but right behind my backyard.
I have no more lofty goals other than to see that my son is happy with his chosen path. All those years of struggle boiling down to a single purpose, to take care of my son and take the role of both father and mother to him.
The lesson, as long as what one is doing is not aligned with the soul purpose, it will be a life of struggle and pain, of ceaseless journey between the realms of the gods, the jealous god, the human realm, the animal realm and the hell realms as mentioned in most Buddhist literature.
How do you know what your life purpose is? You need to examine the life you have lived and see where the pains came from and what you learned from those painful experiences.
We were not meant to live a life of pain and struggle. Those were experiences that you either chose or were directed to because you were not paying attention to what is required of you.
This self examination requires absolute honesty but without judgment on our part. You may want to write down your insights to the following questions.
1. What periods of my life were the happiest? Why?
2. What periods of my life were the saddest? Why?
3. Was there a repeating pattern in my life which I chose to ignore and yet keep presenting itself?
4. To what end can I use my unique abilities, skills and talents that will allow me to be both self fulfilled, happy and of help to those that are in my life right NOW?
5. What unique contribution can I do to the world at large?
6. How can I fit my current circumstances to what I have discovered about myself?
You may ask "What has my soul purpose got to do with my career?"The answer is everything. Your work is such an integral part of your daily life and if it does not make you happy then there is a misalignment somewhere and you need to figure it out. Keep on working on yourself and know that you are always guided and that the Universe will always support you if what you are doing is in alignment with your soul purpose.
Melinda M. Sorensson, author
My Journey to an Integrated Life
ISBN-10: 0979650704
Available at booksxyz.com
© 2009 by Melinda M. Sorensson
