Last Sunday a sister in my ward was teaching a lesson about how to live life with purpose. She then asked us how someone could go about living their life with "purpose". My first thoughts are, to be passionate about what you do and to make sure you have a purpose/goal when you are doing something. But, I love what she said a whole lot more. She said that it is all about the importance of real intent. Real intent is doing something, and knowing why you are doing it.
I feel like so much of life is doing things just because that is what we are supposed to do or because we are so into our set way of doing things, that we forget why we are doing them, and we even lose the original main purpose or goal we started doing it. This obviously applies pretty well to religion. Religion requires a lot of an active "believer". Especially in the LDS church, because it is run off of people accepting positions and volunteering their time to do that. We rely on members for our body of talks on Sunday. Church is three hours long. We clean our own church. We're supposed to go to the temple regularly. Read daily pray multiple times daily. And, a lot of other random little things that end up taking time. I know that other churches also ask certain things of their congregations as well, including a whole lot of volunteer work. People generally start out volunteering or really doing anything religious because of their belief or faith or hope in the gospel they are a part of, but it can so easily start to get in the way of life ambitions or just every-day business, and to forget that we started doing it with a purpose. To serve. To learn. To be humble. To be helpful. To be better people. To serve God. We had reasons we wanted to do the things we do for our religion, and it is a crazy merry-go-round cycle of re-discovering our "real intent" of doing it. We forget that we used to know why, and then we have to re-figure that out.
It doesn't only apply to religion, obviously, because life isn't religion. It applies to our personal relationships...every person we have a relationship with has/had purpose. Sometimes we start a relationship (not always romantic) with someone and we have a reason for it whether we recognize it or not. It can be for our own happiness and enjoyment, it can be to be more accepted among a certain group, it can be because you need something from them, or because you feel like they need you. Whether you believe it is right or wrong, not all relationships are built just because people actually want to be friends. That is why friendships end and relationships end. The original goal or "know why" is either now gone or has been forgotten.
It applies to work, and to hobbies. I think hobbies are a great one, because it is so hard to "create" a new hobby. Trust me, I've been trying to. And my purpose behind my new hobbies? Do I know why I want to do them? I know exactly why. That is why I haven't given up learning them yet, because I have such a strong desire for the benefits that they would bring. But, so so so many times we try to start a new hobby and it quickly fades out. Why? Because we really didn't have a purpose in it that was important to us. If it isn't important to us in ways that we need, we most likely aren't going to keep it up. Maybe, it will be more important at a different time in life, in which case we will re-try.
Anyways, these are my Sunday ramblings. I am going to try to remember all the reasons I do the things I do and know why I do something when I do it. It is one thing to just think something up and decide to do it and a completely different one when you think of something and then try to recognize what your true purpose is in doing that thing. You will find so much more satisfaction in life as you filter the things you choose to do based off of which as a purpose worth acknowledging. This is how better people and better societies are created, because it keeps the focus on making right decisions for yourself and those around you.
