On Purpose

finding a path

Upon discovering Substack, I knew immediately it would be a good place to share more writing, and more importantly, to interact with you with authenticity. What took me a little longer to figure out was how to best utilize the site. I knew the first post should help to introduce a little about who I am, but after that what would be the purpose of this page? 

After tossing a dozen different ideas into the proverbial trash can, I decided I wanted to make this page about you. I want you involved. I want to know what you want to read. So I posted to my Instagram stories and I asked you, 

What do you want me to write about next? 

Here’s how you replied:

-More travel stories    

-Your childhood. 

-Dharma - Reincarnation - Self-love.

-The influence music has had on your writing.

-TACOS! 

-Jiu Jitsu

-Magic mushroom trips

-Vonnegut

-The one closest to your heart 

-Relationships 

- A philosophy for life 

-Finding Purpose

And just like that, you’ve given me a purpose, and so I give you, 

On Purpose 

I was twenty-five years old when I left the military. The military instills in its members a severe sense of purpose. A communal purpose which we were all expected to share. The purpose was profound and meaningful. Perhaps we all started for our own reasons, college money, travel, upward mobility, the desire to see how we would fare against the most pointed expression of the austere. Whatever our purpose was when we entered, it was ground out of us and replaced with a singular unifying purpose, mission first. 

I was a medic so my mission was to maintain the health, wellbeing, and fighting readiness of my guys. Their mission was to eliminate the hostile threats of the United States of America. We were a group of men in our late teens and early twenties with the lofty purpose of saving and taking lives. Our purpose was literally life and death. 

Then one day, like most of us do, I left the military. I received a piece of paper that said honorable discharge, turned around, and stepped off the peak of a mountain. I fell from purpose, fell from grace. I fell into a bottle and I fell for any woman with tattoos and daddy issues. I fell for a long time before I hit the rocky suicidal bottom. 

As I fell I grasped at any root or stone I could. God, did I cling. I clang to athletic competitions like Triathlon and CrossFit. I poured myself into training fifty to sixty hours a week. I made lofty goals and crippled my body to achieve them. But purpose is not a goal, purpose is a reason to exist. And so I fell. As so many of us have fallen from that lofty life or death summit of purpose. 

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash

I found some purpose in writing. I wrote a book and then another. When people read those books they reached out to me and told me their stories. I’ve heard thousands upon thousands of stories, profound struggles with mental health. I’ve listened to countless tales of depression, of good people battling against themselves. And when I say good people, I mean driven people. People who want to be a positive force in the world. People who have so damn much to give, to love, to encourage, to inspire, to create. These people, fallen from grace of purpose, and self-inflicting irreparable wounds. It keeps me up at night. 

And all I want for them is to climb, to see there is another peak in the distance, and I want them to know that there is grass, cold and wet beneath their bare feet here in the valley and to enjoy that too because it is beautiful. I want them to know the path is long, sure yes it’s long, it is long and worth it and each step is a gift on that cold wet grass. 

Know that the peak of your purpose may be veiled by clouds, mine certainly was. But the simple act of moving in the direction of purpose is what inspires others to pick themselves up from the broken stones of those dark valleys and to at least look skyward again. It is you who gets to choose the peak, the path, the purpose of your existence. And you may choose anything, so long as you choose something that moves you. 

Thank you for giving this new page (and me) purpose. 

*Tacos, Travel Stories, Relationships, Jiu Jitsu, Music, and Magic Mushrooms coming soon…

*** Tell me what subject you want me to write about next in the comment section. ***