that ache to belong to the task

So many write about it. So many teach and inspire others to seek and find it. So many want it; yearning for the pull of it; breathing in and out with the hope of achieving it.

Dave calls it "The Sweet Spot"

Steve calls it "Living consciously"

Dick calls it "Genius"

Jonathan would probably call it "The creative life"

Most of us want it. Some of us only aspire to a dim feeling it might be possible. Some of us are driven to achieve it at all costs. Some of us are philosophical about it. Some of us are deeply spiritual about it. Some of us actually find it.

It can't be bought, sold, hired, or even given away. This "It" is intangible, elusive, mutable and ephemeral. It can be sought but never clutched. Once its found it is as if the sky opens to new wonders you could never have envisaged and you find yourself in territory so alien as to be morphed yourself into someone your nearest and dearest barely recognise. The people who find their personal "It" become...well... they glow! They literally beam with joy and spirit. Their bodies burst with health, vitality, Life, joi d'vivre. They have a presence and a innate sense of personal power that captivates and charms. They're wonderful to be around but they don't...they never...milk that for their own purposes at all, they're completely self Less in their expression because they're fulfilled at the basest core of their being and they don't need any ego trips to keep topping it up.

"It" is THE THING YOU were uniquely wired for and/or put on this earth to DO.

Some call it "Purpose".

In me, the pursuit of it causes all manner of deep and hidden urgency. I get moments when I feel the pull but cannot remotely even put my finger on what it is that is pulling me. That is so frustrating. I WANT to do what I'm meant to do. I want to engage fully with whatever it is that is my passion, my inner drive, my fulfillment as a human being. I want to be of service through the manifestation of my particular soup of talents, skills and expertise. I want to engage in the task where time stops and that thing becomes play and fun and its sort of 'easy' (but not unchallenging) and where it is simply regenerative to the soul...not only my own soul but everyone else's too.

I have no freaking idea what my "It" is! I want to know. I want to find out. I want to find it, embrace it, let it rest on me like the downy bodies of butterflies. I want to experience what it's like to be ENGAGED with my life's work. Work that uplifts and inspires and mends and builds. I want to be fully conversant with the world in fruitful and blissful reciprocation of what I have to offer and what I get back in return for what I offer. I want to fully develop that which makes me of service to others.

Looking for my personal "It" is akin to sitting in a very dark theatre, trying to watch a movie shot in the dark! It's like watching Apocalypse Now with the sound turned off and the lighting turned way down to almost black. You glimpse things but nothing makes sense. You know its an important story but you can't make head or tail of who or how things are meshing together. Finding ones "It" is inconceivably annoying sometimes.

There are all these steps you can do I suppose to try and nail down the Thing you were meant to do. Boxes you can tick, spiritual exercises you can try, personal development tapes you can listen to. Labels you can name your innate gift. There is all that stuff you can do to attempt to find it.

For the most part, people just like the process of trying to find it I guess. That pull, that sense of being MORE than just a conglomerate of atoms and cells with limbs is a strong one. We'd like to think of ourselves as being gods of our niche where no one else can match us for brilliance and omnipotence. We are all suitably narcissistic enough to want that kind of rush to the head.

Perhaps I grow too cynical these days. Perhaps I've had enough of reading PD stuff that serves no other purpose than to make me FEEL like I'm doing okay in trying to be "better" as a person. Trying isn't doing. Doing is forgetting about trying and is merely practical application using what is currently at hand. Trying is frantically looking for anything other than whats at hand. Trying is merely an excuse to not do. Doing is mostly scary. Trying makes you look courageous but its usually just a bit of pimped up ride really.

My passion is?

I have no freaking idea!

My skills I could probably list but I don't seriously believe in any of them you know. I doubt my skills. They don't make me really happy as such, they're just stuff that I learned how to do over the years and I rarely if ever feel I can do them well.

My talents are what?

I have no real clear indication other than those that fall under the skills list. I could perhaps list them but I don't actually believe they're that useful to myself or anyone. They just happen to be a very, very few things I know I can do slightly above average to my peers. Even then, I doubt them seriously as being markers to finding my "Thing I'm Meant to Do". I may even perhaps have talents I don't even recognise or realise - hardly useful those then!

So - this palpably, stupidly annoying feeling of being pulled towards the Thing...the something I want/need/can do tugs at my spiritual shirt tails and I turn but it's gone and as much as I look for it... it continues to elude me. It's like a call coming from no discernible direction - a kind of shadowy echo of something calling me from the soupy mists in a land called "Purpose".

What the hell am I here to do? I ache to belong to the job that is right for me. And I suspect if I ever find it, it will be a job that takes me outside of my ego-centric self and puts me into alien territory where I become someone else other than the person I think I should be. Someone better, someone bolder, someone kinder and more loving than I am right now. I have something to do in the world but the synergy between what it is and what I am is not yet simpatico.

Damned frustrating that!