First Blog - inner and outer purpose

Its difficult to make your first blog entry, so difficult to know what to say. I'm sure there's been countless blogs about this very subject written, blogs about blogs about how to write a blog that tells someone how to make their first blog entry. Given that there are also plenty of blogs starting out like this one, I'll proceed.

The intention of this blog is to distill some of the inspirational beauty that life has to offer - its a method of encouraging myself to observe it, and part of an internal purpose to share it with the world.

This morning is a prime example of the simpleness of this approach yielding personally uplifting results - As simple as observing someone at the tram stop wearing a dog suit, accompanied by a person clad in see-through plastic. Ahhh diversity, got to love it. I'm sure those people were getting all sorts of attention and were the subject of many a lunch-break conversation - lending moments of happiness to the busy people of our city (bless 'em).

I was reading my book today - A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle (Power of Now), and before jumping off the tram, a guy expressed interest in it. I knew that I had caught the tram rather than cycled to work this morning for a reason, but between him, the dog, and the cute girl with strawberry-blonde dreadlocks neatly tied up to match her business attire, I had my reason - and basked in the pleasure this brought.

This realisation, as well as a conversation the previous evening with a heart friend Sal - who showered my in appreciation and love after I just allowed my intuition to guide her through her present momentary crisis, helped me have a minor epiphany. I feel highly motivated to give something to the world, to use my skills to best effect to contribute something of value to the world which has given me so much. I'm fortunate that I've been able to allign my contribution (my work) to my passion - environmental conservation - through working in renewable energy, green buildings, and sustainable living. In this I feel that I've discovered my outer purpose (for the moment), but there's much more to me and to life than this - this is what lies within and drives and guides us.

Eckhart tolle summed it up thus: "I am not saying here that helping others, caring for your children, or striving for excellence in whatever field are not worthwhile things to do. For many people, they are an important part of their outer purpose, but outer purpose alone is always relative, unstable, and impermanent. This does not mean that you should not be engaged in those activities. It means you should connect them to your inner, primary purpose, so that a deeper meaning flows into what you do."

So perhaps this blog forms some part of my inner purpose - which I feel for the moment is to inspire people to live to their potential, in everyday life and in their work. As I sat back and reflected in the afterglow of this realisation, I was pleased to observe the hand grips on the tram moving in synchonous motion, like linked pendulums - a phenomenon which brings me calmness and pleasure.