My Purpose, Why I Live and Breath

               "Having a rough morning?  Place your hand over your heart, feel that?  That's called purpose.  You're alive for a reason."  This quote is by an unknown author and I believe it accurately states that we are all alive to fulfill our purpose.  But, what is my purpose in life?  What was I made to do?  Many people have searched far and wide trying to find their purpose in life.  At this moment in time I find myself being asked two questions that are focused on helping me find my purpose after high school.  These two questions are: “So, do you know what college you are going to” and “What are you going to study in college.”  Both of these questions are common questions that I have begun to be asked by almost every adult that I come in contact with since becoming a senior in high school.  Both of these questions focus on my purpose after school and really the purpose of my life.  After all, what I study in college and where I study will determine my career and will have an immeasurable impact on the direction of my life.  These questions tend to stress me out due to the fact that I really don’t know the answer to any of these questions!  I know that I am under no pressure or impending deadlines to find the answers to these questions but I still feel like I should know the answers so that I can begin to plan my future.  That’s right, plan my future.  Planning is what I do, I’m a planner! It has almost become an addiction because I have to plan out everything that I do and if I don’t have a plan, I feel very uneasy.  I blame my dad because he is a planner too!  We both should probably go to planners anonymous!  Also, I feel stressed by these questions because I don’t want to make the wrong decision.  But, even though I am scared to make the wrong decision, by answering these questions I will be able to find my purpose easier.  And as Jiminy Cricket once told Pinocchio “If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme.”  So as long as I put all of my heart into my life’s purposes, then I will be able to achieve my purposes in life. 

                What is my purpose in life?  One part of my purpose in life is my future career.  And in order to chose the correct career for me that will enable me to fulfill my life purpose I believe I need to start with the basics that will lead me to being able to start my career.  The foundation of doing so is first gaining an education.  This is done in various different methods by many people but how I am going to gain an education is through a four-year university.  But which university am I going to attend you may ask?  Well to start off answering this question I will just come out and say it, I don’t know!  I could not tell you for certain where I am going to be attending college.  But, I do have my choices narrowed down to two universities: the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and Wayne State College.  At the moment I would say that I am eighty percent sure that I am going to become a Husker, but I still have college visits to both campuses so that I will make the best informed decision. 

The next step to gaining the knowledge to start my future career is choosing what I am going to study in college.  So what am I going to study in college?  Once again, I cannot give you an exact answer but I do feel more confident in my response to this question.  Right now I plan to double major in Psychology and Nutrition, Health, and Exercise Science with a minor in business administration.  After gaining these degrees and minor I plan to attend either nursing or physical therapy school.  The choice between nursing and physical therapy is where I am torn.  I feel that my purpose in life is to help others, I have always believed this, and now I am unsure of which career completes my purpose.  When trying to decide between these two careers I first begin by thinking about the positives and negatives of both.  Many times while doing this I decide one option is definitely what I want to do for the rest of my life but then I start to think about the other career and I second guess my decision and I am soon back to square one.  I keep flip-flopping between both options and this is one of the main reasons I chose the majors above.  By completely these majors I will be able to have a solid foundation that will allow me to do either nursing or physical therapy after college.  Also, by earning these majors I will be able to decide during my studying in college which career is right for me instead of finding out the hard way after graduating college and discovering that I made the wrong decision. 

                All of these steps help determine the purpose of my career in life, but my life is not just based on work, my life has many purposes, goals, and dreams.  As Mary Poppins says, “Go and chase your dreams, you won’t regret it. Anything can happen if you let it.”  One of my goals in life is to find and marry my “prince charming”.  Another of my goals in life is to become a parent.  Both of these goals lead directly to my belief that becoming a mother is one of my purposes in life!  A different purpose I feel compelled to complete is helping others through volunteer work such as mission trips.  My past mission trips have been accompanied with the desire to do more to help and to give back to others.  And as a result I am attracted to completing more service and volunteer work in my future.  One more purpose I feel that I have deals with my grandfather.  And I know that I talk about my grandpa a lot, but that is just because he was such an instrumental part of my life!  My grandpa Cerveny was a man that lived life to its fullest, loved with his whole heart, and gave everything his all, never quit and worked hard, and somehow made whoever he was talking to feel like the only person in the world.  I feel like it is my purpose in life to try and live in such a way that I make such a positive impact on another’s life, like my grandpa did to mine.  Christopher Robin has said “That’s what friends are for.  They help you to be more of who you are.”  I’m not saying that I am motivated to do this so that everyone will like me and I can be best friends with everyone, I am saying that I believe one of my purposes in life is to live in such a way that I make the world around me a better, positive place than contributing the world in a toxic manner. 

                The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines purpose as “Something set up as an object or end to be attained” but I believe that the word purpose holds many diverse meanings across the globe.  And, consequently, people’s purposes in life differ as well.  I am not one hundred percent sure of what my purpose is but I have hopefully just described, in my blog above, I do have areas where I feel drawn to pursue.  And I have recently learned life doesn’t always go as planned and my purposes are bound to change many times before I leave this earth.  But, as Zayn Malik, a member of One Direction, has said “Life is funny, things change, people change, but you will always be you, so stay true to yourself and never sacrifice who you are for anyone.”  As long as I remain true to my values and beliefs my purpose will be clear to me.