Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. – Rumi

Lately, I have been reflecting on the idea and action of purpose. How do we decide what is our purpose? And how do we act purposefully in each day of our lives?

Life can, at times, feel like parade of accidents, moving from one unintended and possibly catastrophic moment to the next. We may watch from the sidelines, thinking that there is nothing we can do to change what comes next. Or perhaps we make ourselves active participants, leading or guiding the parade to its possible negative end.

Of course, life is filled with incidents, good, bad, in-between, intentional, and unintentional events. And oftentimes, we can choose our roles, whether as spectators or participants, etc.

Many times I have been asked how I have come to live in places foreign to me. My answer has typically been that the universe pulled me to that location. More recently, my response has been one word: kaze (風).

Kaze means “wind” in Japanese. I enjoy the sound and the feeling of this word. It resonates with some core part of myself that relishes the weightless, transient, and forceful nature of wind. Perhaps I long to be a little like the wind…

Still, even wind has direction and purpose. And so, too, do we. Wind, after all, is just air in motion.

So, too, can we be in motion in our lives, picking up enough speed to change our locations, whether physically, spiritually, or psychologically.

How do we decide what is our purpose? We listen to what our core self desires the most. How do we act purposefully in each day of our lives? We trust in our kaze.

It’s 2020. Let’s see where we will allow the wind to take us.

D