The Purpose Pages

What makes a leader?  Why be a leader?  And, How to be a leader? I was visiting Colorado this past weekend.  While there, I pushed myself to explore new environments to find God far away from the comfortable home I’ve made in Minnesota.  When I do activities like this – activities that push me to my limits physically, emotionally, and spiritually –  I can’t help but daydream about my purpose in life and how I am going to fulfill it with the limited time I have alive on earth. Anyone can hike and climb a physical mountain.  But adventure I find most challenging is, how do we scale the vast[…]

What happened to me?  I used to be so… unhappy, unorganized, unfocused, and confused inside. Somewhere along my life journey I changed.  I became honest, likable, responsible, driven, motivated, and productive?  Somehow, at some point, I changed from an entitled, ungrateful, manipulative human being into a man I am proud to be today. So how does a person make that change?  Without losing yourself in the process, how do you become a better person? I think the first step is targeting the stimuli which you are ingesting into your body, which is turning you into the person you’re not 100% happy with.  Our culture is full of rotten content, or[…]

My wife and survived our first year of marriage by making it to our first anniversary last weekend!  At times, the journey wasn’t the most beautiful or graceful thing I’ve ever done.  My wife and I struggled at times, we fought at times, we loved at times, and we truly enjoyed the journey at times.   But at other times, we got loud, got stubborn, and even swore a few times.  At this first anniversary date, we’re both excited we made it, and also relieved that our first year of marriage, and all of the challenges that came with it, are finally done for us.  We made it, and because we[…]

Only God can lead you to your Purpose in Life, and I found God in 3 major ways: 1) First, I became so unhappy and unfulfilled with my life, that I was desperate for change.  My life had become a unmanageable state of misery.  A good friend of mine had just died of a drug overdose, and I had been living a lie most of my life.  I suddenly realized all of the achievements in my life didn’t mean a thing as I hadn’t worked hard for any of them.  I had spent my whole life coasting by on natural talent, trying to act the role I thought everyone else[…]

At one point in my life, I was totally lost, hurt, and devastated. I can’t believe how far I had traveled away from my purpose in life, and how far back I had to journey to find it again.   In 2002, when my friend died of an accidental heroin overdose after leaving my college apartment, I collapsed into a severe state of shock and depression.  I lost track of what was real for months after that.   I had always thought a little bit of partying was cool.  I thought drugs and alcohol were innocent fun.  I thought as long as I was succeeding in college, life could be just[…]

I see a major problem with our current 40-hour-a-week, chase the American Dream mentality our culture has accepted as truth.  This popular version of the American Dream includes making as much money as you can, raising-a-family-you-are-debatably-close-to; and then retiring into the sunset of old-age with a mind full of dying, unfulfilled dreams.  We American’s work hard, it’s true.  We are survivors of adversity.  For the last several centuries, hard work  has become a core value of what it means to be an American. Our ancestors built their legacies by cultivating the wild west; and then building some of the most magnificent cities in the world; and then our generation has[…]

For the last two days, I’ve been laying in bed motionless pondering the question why do we suffer?  I’ve needed this four day weekend to catch my breath,  before I’m ready to climb the mountain to find my purpose of life again. I remember when I first got out of prison a few years ago.   I walked out of the Wisconsin gates on August 21, 2002, after ten years incarcerated, because of some wrong decisions I made in my early 20’s.  Six days after being released, I was enrolled in my senior year of college taking 16 credits, and there was so much learning, and catching up to do.  I[…]