Jacques de Villiers

Tag: purpose

Find Something To Fail At

Jacques de Villiers – writing quest: Article 50/365

Imagine that you’re a contender in a game called life and that the world is your gymnasium. We’ve been taught that our job is to play the game to win.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been winning at business, love and life a lot lately. And winning is a Sisyphean endeavour for most of us. Because most of us perceive ourselves to be empty and need to be filled. When we start from emptiness instead of gratitude, nothing we do or have will ever feel like enough.

“No amount of zeros at the end of your pay cheque can fill that hole in your chest called insecurity.”
Sheikh Ebrahim Schuitema

I changed my view of winning at the game about 10 years ago. This shift in perception helped me contend in the game differently. It has been helpful to me, and it may be helpful to you.

It started with a story that Sheikh Ebrahim Schuitema told about walking up a mountain. “You can describe a person walking in two ways. You can either say he’s walking to get to the top of the mountain. Or you can say the top of the mountain is his means to have a good walk.

If there wasn’t a good challenge, he wouldn’t have a good walk. And the real product of a good walk isn’t that the top of the mountain gets achieved. The real product is that the walker becomes stronger and better at walking.”

So, what’s the real point of any endeavour, be it starting a business, getting married or creating art? For me the point is not winning but transformation.

The only point of a gymnasium is the athlete, the one who is playing. One doesn’t do things to achieve things, one does them to do them well. It’s a shift from outcome to process.

Because it’s only in the blood and guts of the process that we truly transform. If everything were easy and everything we touched turned to gold, there’d be no transformation, only hedonism.

I’d argue that all of us fail more than we win. Shattered marriages, failed friendships, broken children, failed businesses and unmet expectations are chronicles of our defeats. If we had to base the success of our lives on our wins, we’d all be in a very sad place indeed.

Should we say, what’s the point of playing the game and contending if I’m going to lose more than I win?

Of course not.

The purpose of any endeavour is not the endeavour. The purpose of any endeavour is to turn us into more conscious, eloquent and awesome human beings. To bring us to the truth of who we are; masterpieces creating master-works.

Why don’t you and I go find another endeavour to fail at?

It’s only a game, after all.

And, it’s a game that’s stacked in our favour.

April 1, 2024
Why Life Is Like WhatsApp
Article 21/365 of Jacques’s writing quest.

I don’t know about you, but I belong to a bunch of WhatsApp groups. Most of them have a specific goal and in my experience, most of them lose their shape. People share irrelevant messages in groups, causing us to forget the original purpose of the group.

Is life not similar?

Like me, you probably had a vision for how your life would pan out and cobbled a plan together to get there. How’s that working out for you?

My plan to become a philosophy professor at Stellenbosch University died decades ago. My life didn’t shape out at all how I imagined it.

As the poet, Robert Burns, famously said, “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.”

I’ve realised three things.
1. My journey may not follow the exact path I imagined, but it is the correct path for me to express my divine self. Whilst it is at first not apparent, I am a philosopher, albeit not at Stellenbosch University. For the past 22 years, I have shared my philosophy of “finding a path with heart” in numerous articles and on over 2000 stages and classrooms worldwide.
2. If you’re not on a path that fills your heart with joy, you can get off it any time you want to. There’s no affront to you or anyone else to do so. Like a WhatsApp group, you can leave it at any time. Do it now if your heart cries out for more.
3. My life has turned out just as it should as dictated by my soul contract in its quest to reach its highest potential. My life is way richer and more fulfilling than anything I could have imagined for myself. That’s not by my own doing but by an ingenuity far greater than anything I can imagine. I surrender to that ingenuity to use me as it sees fit.
Whatever path you’re on is the one that you’re supposed to be on right now based on how far you’ve evolved in your journey to express your true being. The more conscious you become of your divine right to play here at this time and of the purpose you have been brought to earth to carry out, the more fulfilled you will be.

Photo Credit: Writesonic AI. “Discover a path adorned with a heart, reminiscent of the surrealistic style of Salvador Dali. Vibrant colors, dream-like atmosphere, melting and distorted elements, symbolic imagery, imaginative composition, oil on canvas, 20th-century art movement, highly detailed, thought-provoking, 4K resolution.”
February 9, 2024
The Point Of Purpose

You’ve probably heard all these motivational sorts talk about finding your purpose.

But a purpose is not to be found … just by being born, we’ve already found and fulfilled our purpose.

We tend to confuse purpose with an outcome. You’ve probably heard things like:

– My family is my purpose.
– My purpose is to make a difference.
– My purpose is to help the destitute find loving homes.
– My purpose is to be a good person so that I can get to heaven.

You catch my drift. It’s all outcomes based.

When we open our eyes, we see everything coming at us. We are central to everything. We are essentially the point of the whole exercise.

This story that we are in was written to enchant and enthral us. We were created to witness this magnificent play that was crafted for us.

When we witness a beautiful piece of art, listen to an entrancing piece of music or see a majestic mountain range, it’s appropriate to be in awe of it all.

Our purpose is to enjoy everything that has been written for us. We are the point. We are the outcome. Our purpose is not to get an outcome.

September 2, 2021
Find your purpose in 5 minutes
Find your purpose in 5 minutes with a pencil.

Do you remember Forrest Gump’s iconic quote, “My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

He clearly had a smart mom.

I was writing a piece of text with a pencil the other day.

It soon became blunt and I had to use a sharpener to get it back into shape again.

In that moment it occurred to me that maybe our lives are like a pencil and sharpener too.

Let’s see if I can help you find your purpose in 5 minutes (and mine too).

Imagine that the pencil is the length of our life. When we get to the stub, our life is over.

A graphite pencil has approximately 45 000 words in it. If we get to the end with some eloquence and grace, we have approximately 70+ years.

Of course, the pencil can break.

That’s game over. Ditto for our lives.

A pencil can get lost and never found.

This means it can never fulfil its purpose which is to write our life story and make some kind of meaningful impact on humanity.

It is difficult to find your purpose in 5 minutes because things don’t always go according to plan.

It can get lost and found by someone else and be used.

Our lives don’t always turn out like we expect and through getting lost and taking wrong turns we still fulfil our purpose.

Just not in the way we planned it.

For as long as the pencil is used, it makes an impact.

Of course, with use, the pencil blunts. It needs constant sharpening.

Find your purpose in 5 minutes with a sharpener.

The sharpener is our intent.

It shaves off the wood that is not needed to reveal the sharp graphite.

Each time our pencil is sharpened it reignites so that it becomes useful and fulfils its purpose.

If we don’t sharpen our pencil, it remains blunt and eventually becomes useless.

How do we then keep our pencils sharp and make sure that we are useful?

How do you find your purpose in 5 minutes? The first step is to understand that we are here for a purpose.

We need constant sharpening otherwise we forget our purpose. Sharpeners come in many shapes and forms:
- positive attitude
- meditation
- journaling
- exercise
- mentors
- friends
- reading
- acts of kindness
- philosophy
- religion
- friends and family
The metaphor of a pencil and sharpener may not help you find your purpose in 5 minutes, but it might give you something to think about.

Every conscious interaction we have is there to sharpen our intent and remove what is not useful to achieving our purpose.

So, use your pencil. Take those 45 000 words and write a worthwhile story. A story that makes a mark and a difference to everyone who is touched by it.

Yes, I know, who the hell can find your purpose in 5 minutes? All I know is that you only have one life (unless you believe in reincarnation), make the most of it so that when you meet your maker, you can give it up with grace and not with regret.

You may not be able to find your purpose in 5 minutes – but whether it takes 5 days, 5 years or a lifetime of striving to find it, you need to give it a shot.
January 23, 2018
Jonah, the Whale and You
I was reading about Jonah and the whale as one does when Stephen King starts to get boring. You know the story. God commands Jonah to preach repentance to the city of Nineveh.

Jonah wasn’t keen on this. First, the city was known for its wickedness. Second, it was the capital of the Assyrian empire, one of Israel’s fiercest enemies.

So, Jonah bolted and fled on a ship to Tarshish, in the opposite direction of Nineveh. God sent a violent storm which threatened to break the ship into pieces. The crew tossed Jonah overboard to appease God and he ended up in the belly of a whale (or fish). The sea calmed and they were saved. After three days in the whale he was spat up on the dry land of Nineveh. After lots of gnashing of teeth and praying, I might add.

He then preached to Nineveh. And saved its people from a terrible trauma that God had planned for them. Everyone was happy. Jonah not so much … but I think he was a miserable character to start with.

The story plays out like the The Hero’s Journey by American Mythologist, Joseph Campbell.

Loosely and not quite in the correct order, here’s how the Hero’s (Jonah’s) Journey plays out:
- Call to adventure – preach repentance to citizens of Nineveh.
- Refusal of the call – get the heck out of there and head for Trashish.
- Adventure – ship almost sinks in storm.
- More adventure – thrown overboard.
- Adventure/salvation – land in mouth of whale.
- Dark night of the soul – how’s he going to get out of the whale? Is he going to get out of the whale?
- Salvation – whale spits him out onto dry land after three days.
- Heed the call – listen to God and go and pray for the citizens of Nineveh.
- Climax – saves Nineveh by finally obeying God’s call.
(You’ve seen this in the Hobbit, Star Wars and practically any movie where the hero is called to action).

My interpretation of the Jonah story is a bit different to my Sunday School teacher’s one. Either way, I think the story of Jonah has relevance to all our lives.

Some of us know what our calling is. But we refuse to heed the call. We stay where we are. That’s when we end up in all sorts of misadventures which steer us back to our calling. For Jonah, God’s purpose for him could not be denied. God tracked him and made sure he followed his calling. Your purpose also cannot be denied. It will be like ‘God’ … always following you until you decide to heed the call to adventureAnd, even when you find your calling, the adventures don’t stop. Sometimes you’ll falter and think that you made a big mistake (dark night of the soul).

Of course the trick is to figure out what your calling is. Sometimes it’s foisted on you (just when things were going so well). Sometimes you have an idea about where you should be going but you ignore the call (refusal of call).

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell

You’re actually lucky if you get a calling and figure out how to follow it. Because most men as Henry David Thoreau so eloquently puts it, “… lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

That which makes your heart sing and that which calls you is seldom an easy journey. But, it’s a necessary journey if you are to make something of this life you have chosen to live out on this planet.

Photo Credit: http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/whale
December 16, 2015
From superficial to stupendous

Have you ever experienced the relief when a car alarm that has been going off for the last hour, stops?

Suddenly you can take a breath and think clearly again.

But, if it isn’t a car alarm, it’s some other distraction that’ll keep us out of our heads.

I love distraction because the reality is that it stops me from thinking. More specifically, it stops me from thinking about myself. And, it stops me from living an authentic life.

I like to keep it light and superficial because sometimes it is hard to deal with myself. I don’t want to have to ask (and answer) questions like, “why am I where I’m at?”, “am I happy and do I even know what will make me happy?”, “why am I not achieving my goals?”.

Because if I’m forced to answer these questions I might not be happy with what comes out.

I may just come to the realisation that I’m 100% responsible for the how my life has turned out. And, when I have nobody to blame but myself … that’s a bitter pill to swallow. Because once you come to that realisation that there’s nowhere to hide, then you have to deal with yourself. And, that can be hard.

Thus, I keep myself busy so that I don’t have to face the reality of what I have created … my life.

Theologian Frederich Buechner puts it more eloquently than I ever could, “We shy away from introspection because however fearful the surface seems, we fear the depths still more.

Of course we fear the depths and try and keep things light and on the surface. But, it is only when we go deep that we can really figure things out for ourselves.

And, when we truly plumb the depths of our hearts and souls and realise that, yes, we really are 100% responsible for creating our world, it can be quite liberating.

Because if we’re 100% responsible, we have the power to change any situation we’re in right now.

So, if you’re not happy with something in your life, you have the choice to do something about it right now.

Take yourself off the grid for a while and shut the ‘alarm’ off so that you can come to grips with who you really are.

Have the courage to go deep so that you can turn your life from superficial to stupendous. The journey is worth it, I promise you.

Photo by Zsolt Zsigmond

July 28, 2015