Alan Marcia: “Everyone Has a Purpose”

I believe everyone has a purpose. The world is such a big place, and to say that there’s nothing out there for you is, in my opinion, just wrong. There’s something out there for everyone–we just need to find it.

Since I was young, all I have ever really had the chance to participate in was school. I’ve never been a part of any teams or clubs, but I never really had much talent anyways. I wasn’t too athletic and in school I was horrible at writing, and early on I was just barely decent at math and science. None of my teachers ever really motivated or pushed me in a certain direction. I was just floating on through as the days kind of faded into a long and bland existence.

Most of the time I did not really seem to mind that though. I was on a journey to find my purpose. Everything that would come my way I just gave an honest effort to because I never knew when what I was searching for would find me.

When I was younger, I thought I wanted to be an engineer. I poured all my effort into learning math to prepare myself. Then in my senior year of high school I realized maybe calculus is a tad bit too hard. I decided to continue searching for my purpose elsewhere. If I didn’t try to view it in a positive way, it would’ve all been much harder. I chose to believe that there’s something there for me to look forward to. Some purpose for me to find. I just needed to keep going.

Truthfully speaking I haven’t found that purpose I believe in yet. But because I chose to believe that it’s out there, I’ve managed to stay more than motivated enough to continue searching. I have tried to go out and try new things. And I have found some things I have enjoyed. I found out I really like wood working back in high school. Every class I would spend two hours making beautiful wooden pens. I also found out I liked programming while taking a class on it during my senior year. I wouldn’t call either of these my purpose yet but I’m still exploring programming. As of late I’ve started taking some college classes with the intent to finish a bachelor’s degree, but it’s kind of just something that I’m doing to continue the search for what can potentially be my purpose in life.

Sometimes I like to think that maybe it would be best if I never found that one true purpose. That maybe it would be best if I just continued on while enjoying the things I find along the way.

I use this belief of mine to guide myself so that I don’t get lost. When things get hard it can feel difficult to want to continue on. I use my belief as a reason to continue. An end goal to chase. For some, that are willing to share my belief, I think it can be a reason to start. To start a journey towards a potentially better and happier life.

I don’t know where I’m going or even how long it’ll take to get there, but I’ll do my best to enjoy the ride. I think for a lot of us that’s better than what we would otherwise have.

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(Read all the pieces in This I Believe. Featured image by Jamie Street.)

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