I Was Thinking... What’s Your Purpose?
Fri, 12/12/2025 - 8:15am
admin
By:
Ron Albright
During the discussion at a men’s book study, someone asked, “Are your best years ahead of you or behind you?” There was a long silence while everyone thought for a moment.
If the question referred to life after our current existence, the answer was easy. An eternal life was bound to have a lot more to offer. But when the question was framed in just this life, the answer was more challenging considering the audience. Most of the group were retired and had many more years behind them than in the future. None were in the best shape of their lives and had developed some type of relationship with medical personnel on a regular basis. Yet few of them desired to go back in time. They still looked forward to the future.
What seemed to be true for all of them was each still had a purpose. There was something that made them want to get up and do something each day. A common thread between all of them was the relationships they had with others. The book study group was an example of that. The purpose was to read and share thoughts about the book, but the fellowship that developed was equally important.
As life goes on, purposes change. As a child, our main purpose in life was to play. We were taken care of and had few responsibilities. But as we grew, so did the number of things we needed to do. Our next biggest purpose was to learn. There were life lessons and school. Learning what we needed to know in order to function in a complex society was our primary purpose. As we were navigating this, more personal purposes developed. Finding that special someone, settling on a career path, and starting a family became our new purposes. But as life changes, so do our purposes.
Children grow up and move away, we retire from our jobs, and we are alone with our spouse again. Who we were and who we are now change. Adapting to your new phase of life can be difficult. What is your purpose now? Last fall a TV station interviewed a 96-year-old woman who was going to travel to Ireland to see the Vikings play. When asked why she wanted to do something like this at her age, she explained how she viewed things.
“No matter where you are in life, you need to experience or learn new things every day. You need to have a purpose.”
The men of the book group seemed to share a similar purpose, do something for someone else. It might be a member of their family, doing something at their church, or being involved with a group that did something for others. They now had more time to focus on others and not just on those personal purposes of the past.
A book about finding your purpose discussed ways of doing so. The author said it can come in degrees. He suggested starting out small. Make your bed every morning. Within minutes of getting up, you’ve already accomplished something in your day. Focus on what you can do and not what you can’t. A man in a wheelchair in a nursing home was limited in what he could do. Yet, everyday he wheeled himself from room to room to visit those that couldn’t get around at all. Another man took on the task of writing Christmas cards to every member of law enforcement in their county to thank them for their service. An elderly couple made a goal of cleaning out one closet or dresser each month so when they eventually would have to move, their children wouldn’t be burdened with all that work. Another lady spent half an hour a day writing about the memories of her life and her family history. She wanted to leave a legacy of the past for her family to have after she was gone.
The common thread for each of these examples was their purpose was to do something for somebody else. The purpose became more meaningful when it was directed at touching the lives of others.
Did You Ever Wonder? — Do married people live longer than single people or does it just seem that way?
See full story in this week’s print edition or subscribe online. Please subscribe here or current subscribers can login here.