Inner Peace Outer Purpose

The other day these four words came to me “Inner Peace Outer Purpose” (IPOP). I sat and thought about them for a while and said to myself, now that is something missing from our lives.

Our ignorance or reluctance to listen to our “heart” or follow our “passion” prevent us from achieving inner peace and outer purpose. Peace and purpose are interconnected, as you find one of the two the other will be unveiled.

We have so many distractions on a daily basis like media and social pressure that divert our attention away from focusing on our precious selves. We tend to benchmark ourselves against the average expectation of society, which will most of the time make us feel dissatisfied, simply because society is constantly evolving and we end up playing “catch-up” and leading a very stressful life, eating up our peace, piece by piece.

So far I haven’t told you anything you don’t know, and I do not intend to either both because this is part of your individual birth right and we tend to forget this.

If I was to ask you “What does society expect of you?” you will be able to provide an answer quite quickly almost instantaneously without giving it a thought. If I ask you “What do you expect from yourself?” some of you will have some difficulty in answering this even when thinking about it. This tells us how much our minds have been conditioned in different ways, preventing us to get to know ourselves, but the good thing is there is still time. Non-conformity to the norm may be the secret to your peace of mind. The problem is few of us dare not to go down that path.

Doing what is expected of us as opposed to what we should be doing inherently has a negative impact. Money is what makes the world go round apparently, and we seem to be orbiting around this. As I have already explained in a previous article, when you follow your passion you will reap that financial return anyway. If making money is your objective then you will remain far from achieving IPOP. If we were to remove the financial reward associated with your employment you will most probably dislike your occupation, at least in most cases, whereas if you do what you are passionate about, which is ultimately your purpose, you will see that the real reward is in the doing.

We are constantly curious about other people’s affairs and lives, but our curiosity for our own self-discovery has not even yet begun. A conscious decision needs to be taken to achieve self-fulfillment and focus on climbing up the hierarchy of happiness. The more we delay the more we extend this torture.

We expect peace everywhere around us yet we are not at peace with ourselves.  So remember, IPOP.

"Always follow your heart, even though its on your left its always right" - unknown