Tired of your ordinary Monday morning commute? By this time next year, you could be finishing up your Peace Corps training and swearing in as a Health Extension Agent in Senegal, where the ride to work can be a little more interesting.
To learn more about Peace Corps Senegal and see the other winning photos from their recent contest, visit their website.
Gilbert: My dance partner, chapati expert, and Christmas cookie froster. He’s also been one of my favorite people to contemplate life with. This past week, in preparation for a lesson with a youth camp, I posed a question to him: “What is purpose, and what does it mean to live a purposeful life?” After a few hours of conversation and several days of reflection, this is what he sent me. There’s a heart of gold and thoughtful mind under this hat, and I ask you, as we enter a new year and reflect on the old, to consider your own purpose in this world. Without it, without a reason to get out of bed in the morning, without something that drives you, we are simply living a “life in motion without meaning.” (*This is a Gilbert original and only minor edits have been made for spelling and grammar.)
HOW CAN ONE DISCOVER HIS PURPOSE. #Focus: It concentrates your effort and energy on what’s important, you become effective by being selective. It’s human nature to get distracted by minor issues, we play trivial pursuit with our lives. In my own observation I see people live a life of “quiet desperation,” but today a better description is aimless distraction. There is nothing quite as potent as a focused life, one lived on purpose because if you want your life to have impact, focus it! Stop dabbling, stop trying to do it all. Do less. Prune away even good activities and do only those which matter most. Never confuse activity with productivity because sometimes we can be busy without a purpose, but what’s the point? In conclusion, “if you want your life to have impact, focus it!”
#Motivation: Knowing your purpose motivates your life, purpose always produces passion. Nothing energizes like a clear purpose. On the other hand, passion dissipates when you lack a purpose. Just getting out of bed becomes a major chore. It is usually meaningless work, not overwork, that wears us down, saps our strength, and robs our joy. The true joy of life is being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clot of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
#Knowing your role to play: This identifies what you do and what you don’t do. Your purpose becomes the standared you use to evaluate which activities are essential and which aren’t. Sometimes you have to ask, “Does this activity help me fulfill my purpose for my life?” Without a clear purpose you have no foundation on which you will tend to make choices based on circumstances, pressure and your mood at the moment. People who don’t know their purpose try to do too much-and that causes stress, fatigue, and conflict. Purpose-driven living leads to a simpler lifestyle and a saner schedule.
#Hope: Hope is as essential to your life as air and water. We need hope to cope, hope comes from having a purpose. Wonderful changes happen in life as you begin to live it on purpose.
In conclusion without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction and events without reason, life becomes trivial, petty and pointless.
“Because most children in Mozambique don’t have the means to celebrate their birthdays, every child celebrates Children’s Day on June 1st. In addition to a few dozen paper crowns for the boys, I made tutus for a dozen of the little girls to wear on their special day. Sometimes a simple gesture like this was all it took to make a difference in a day for both myself and my community members. ”
“This picture was taken of a little boy named Frederick. Every day during training he would walk with me and smile the entire way. Sometimes he would talk to me in Malagasy and at that point I really had no idea what he was saying, so I would simply smile back at him. Then in return he would smile his biggest smile. I realized that these interactions, these smiles, became our way of communicating. Universal language.”
“I believe it is undoubted that the Peace Corps program fosters an understanding between Africa and the United States, and it’s worthwhile. I’m very, very proud that many years after, we still have that partnership” -President of Ghana John Dramani Mahama
President of Ghana John Dramani Mahama talks about how Peace Corps shaped the course of his life. This is the Peace Corps Legacy.
“The members of the Preschool Committee moved 10,000 bricks to the location of the preschool site in the Northern Province in Zambia. Over 25 adults and 25 children helped to begin laying the foundation of the school with their own two hands, panono panono (bit by bit). The excitement, passion and motivation was incredible!”
“If there’s one thing I cannot handle, it’s the smiles of my kids. They are too cute. My heart has already been filled to maximum capacity and cannot take any more love for them… at least that’s what I think until I find myself loving them a little more.”
