LIFE’S PURPOSE – THE SECRET TO LIVING A BETTER, MORE FULFILLING LIFE

WHAT TONY HORTON AND MY ABUELA HAVE IN COMMON

Tony Horton says a lot of stuff – some awesome, some not so much, and a whole bunch of silliness, but every once in a while the guy says something from the heart…and when he does it’s normally spot on.  The other day I was watching an interview with the Mr. Horton and he said something that really got to me, something I had learned years ago but had not really thought about over the last two years…ever since my Abuela Beba passed away…and this something can change your life.

LIFE’S PURPOSE – THE SECRET TO LIVING A FULFILLING LIFE

In the interview, Tony Horton was talking about being successful, happy, and content with his career and life – and the secret to all three.

Tony Horton’s secret just so happened to be something my Grandma taught me years ago.

It was something Abuela Beba taught me both by word of mouth and, more importantly, by example.  The secret was Abuela Beba’s way of life – it was how she lived her life day in and day out for 82 years.  A secret I originally understood as selfishness when in actuality it was the complete opposite.

You see, Abuela Beba, though one of the most hardheaded individuals I have ever known, was, for the most part, one of the happiest and most content people I have ever met.  Abuela Beba loved her life no matter what life threw her way – and life threw this special woman more crap than most people could even start to imagine, let alone put up with.  Nonetheless, she sat there, taking crap from life and smiling right back in its face…smiling because she had hacked life’s little secret, life’s purpose if you will.

LIFE – “IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.”

So, there Abuela Beba was, living a life filled with struggle, separation, and heartache and living it HAPPILY.

“How…” I would ask her in my early teens, “…how could you stay sane, let alone happy, with all life threw at you….weren’t you ever, I don’t know, fed up with it all.”

“Bueno, si, pero cuando uno vive para mejorar las vidas de otros la vida tuya se mejora tambien.”

Translation: “Well yeah, but when one lives to better the lives of others, your life, in turn, becomes better.”

“Why…how?” I asked her.

“Because LIFE is not about you – LIFE is about others,” she replied.  “And the day you realize that will be the day you will start living a more fulfilling and fruitful life.”

At first I didn’t really understand, let alone believe, my Abuelita.  But over the years, as I continued to witness her life, as I remembered my how Abuelo Lino lived his life, as I started paying more attention to the way my parents live their lives in service to others I started to realize my Abuela Beba was on to something.

THE “A-HA MOMENT” – LEARNING IT’S TRULY NOT ABOUT YOU

So, I continued living my life with Abuela’s words in the back of my mind – “it’s not about you.”

Every time someone asked me for a favor I didn’t want to do – “it’s not about you.”  Every time I had to pull over time at work – “it’s not about you.”   And so on and so forth, I marched along life repeating these words every time I found myself between a rock and hard place with, in all honesty, little to no return on my personal life’s happiness.  But then one day it happened, one day it clicked!

The day I realized I could positively and permanently affect the life of another person was like being reborn. Okay, a bit drastic, but it is a very fulfilling and refreshing feeling – a feeling I strive for daily any way I can – a feeling we should all experience!

There is really no way to explain it but the realization that you are changing LIFE by changing a single person is a pretty powerful thing.  My wife is a teacher, my brother is an immigration lawyer, my brother-in-law is a doctor, and all three of them are happier, less stressed, and genuinely happy with life because they were contributing to LIFE every single day via their occupation.

I personally originally came to understand the purpose of LIFE the day I became a father, but you don’t have to have kids or a job focused on helping others to experience the purpose of LIFE.

Everyone’s “a-ha moment” will most certainly be different, but the result will be the same for most everyone. 

“How can you be sure about that?” you may be asking.

Well, because it’s human nature – if it weren’t we wouldn’t be were we are today.

Think about it, be it God’s plan or the laws of nature, the simple fact is that humanity would have never made it this far without living for each other.  This little fact may seem like common sense.  Heck, you yourself may be like, “Yeah, everybody knows that.”  But this isn’t 15 minutes saving you 15%, this is real talk – LIFE is about the future, it’s about bettering LIFE for you and everyone else, it is about a new today and a better tomorrow and the day you learn to truly believe, and act on this little tidbit, will be the day your life and the world will start changing for the better!