ARE YOUR PURPOSE AND YOUR DESTINY IN CONFLICT?
You can be extremely purpose driven, and still find that your life is unfulfilling. Why? Because until you recognise purpose and destiny as two separate forces that need equal attention, you will almost certainly be in conflict with yourself.
Your purpose could be to help others, while your destiny is to create great art. You may have resisted fulfilling your destiny because becoming an artist seems too solitary and too selfish.
If you ignore your destiny and take a role that simply enables you to live your purpose, then even if you achieve all your desired outcomes there is likely to be a feeling of dissatisfaction that leaves you questioning your choices.
This can be confusing and disheartening. You’ve defined your purpose, you’re actualising it, so what more can you do? It is at this point that understanding the relationship between purpose, destiny, and fulfilment is so important.
This is for the simple reason that when the twin forces of purpose and destiny work together, then your life will be in balance. When your life is in balance, then everything you give and everything you receive create a perfect mutualistic symbiosis.
With your purpose and your destiny aligned, no matter how hard you work or what sacrifices you make, although there may be times when you are tired, you will never be depleted. This means that you can truly give – because what you are offering is truly yours to give.
Take the example of Maria Montessori. Her purpose was to help disadvantaged children. She trained as a doctor, specialising in paediatric medicine. Her life was not happy, though. Her relationship failed, and although she was helping other people’s children, she put her own son into foster care.
It wasn’t until she resigned from her position as a paediatrician and began observing children with mental disabilities at the University of Rome’s psychiatric clinic that she aligned her purpose with her destiny, which was to educate. She was reunited with her son, and they worked closely together developing her teaching methods. There are now Montessori schools all over the world.
This illustrates the point that although a thousand people may have the same purpose, each one of them may have a completely different destiny. When the two are in alignment, then your power to affect positive change increases exponentially. This applies to your own life and to the lives of those around you. It is not to say that your achievements have to be great. They simply have to be right for you.
No matter what our personal ambitions may be, it is not everyone’s destiny to be a doctor. Not even those who can afford the best education or who stay up late into the night working to achieve the required grades. Equally, if you are caught in a trap of generational unemployment, it does not mean it is your destiny to stay in that trap.
Whatever your purpose and your destiny may be, when you bring those two forces together then it doesn’t matter whether the positive change you create impacts exclusively on your own life or enables you to reach the lives of millions. By resolving your internal conflict and achieving balance, you automatically make the world a better place.
Kristian Livolsi
