What I’ve Learned About Purpose After Ten Years of Struggle

The Weight We Carry, the Peace We Choose

Yesterday, 7.13.26, I woke up and wrote out our plan. The plan involves selling our house, relocating, closing or transferring ownership of our shops, paying off debt, and returning to a simpler life, free from the burdens of our business.

It's hard to tell friends and family that we are moving. It's challenging for them because they don't know the extent of pain we have experienced to get to today. I've known this feeling well in my life; through my accident and wound, then in the suffering that came with the business over the past 10 years.

It's time to move on. Look back with a smile. And far less weight of material goods, responsibility, payroll, landlords, and complex problems to solve.

I wonder and dream of what we (I) will become in this next chapter of life, as both a father and a former retail business owner. In 7 months, I'll be forty, & Huck will soon be born or already here. It's a joy that I'm eager to feel as we eliminate the complexities of our current situation.

I'm eager to be present and grounded for him, for Emily, and for myself.

All the lessons I've learned over the past nearly 40 years, but especially the last 10, have served me very well. I now understand how the world of business functions far more than ever. I've learned how to trust, but also, more importantly, that trust comes and goes -- that most of the time, people are only out for themselves. 95% of the time, you must remain guarded even with those you've known for a long time. Relationships seem to shift very quickly, just like life and the situations it brings.

I am extremely optimistic and full of faith now. I have no doubt that life is going to get lighter and easier to be fully present. I'm proud to be where I am. Arriving in this moment and headspace has been a process that's nauseating to me. It's required me to cry, swear, ruminate, search for meaning, seek to understand my pain (and joy), to question, to make mistakes, and go down paths that I'm glad I went down, but happy to leave those woods.

As I laid in bed before writing these words, as I often do, I thought about the vastness of human experience. We wake up, we live, we eat & drink, breathe, interact with others, communicate, then sleep... repeat.

Each day brings the an extreme range of goodness or pain. It's our choice on how we experience this. For me, it's been a multiple-year process of introspection. To close my eyes to see & feel deeply. This may be what Don Juan meant in the Carlos Castaneda book about starting to see.

The range of what people are experiencing in every moment is intense. In this moment of clarity, silence, and darkness, as I write on my laptop with the glow of a candle, I realize fully that this is bliss. This is a perfect moment worth cherishing. To arrive here isn't easy. It takes time, pain, strength, and attention to detail. To exist in the present moment, not for the past or the future.

To be here now is the ultimate blessing. To arrive in a state of zero communication, zero distraction, minimal sound, minimal visual chaos... just to be.

How many people actually arrive in this state of being? How many of my ancestors did? Friends? Family? Aquaintances?

I would imagine that few reach moments like this, but I hope that I am wrong about that. I wonder, how would I know to ask others if they feel this way without realizing it for myself now?

When are you most content? When do you embrace the now and the silence & clarity that comes with minimal input? It's like being in a cave, but without the fear of whether you might make it out or not. Without the need for someone else to arrive. Without the desire for more, or less. To have and cherish time for what it is and the magic that comes with stillness. I have written before that the true magic of looking at the stars is not the stars themselves but the space between the glimmers of light. The space within has the potential to reveal something more than what we can see in the spec of light that we call stars.

Why do we (I) look up into the abyss/space and search for meaning in the stars but not in the great expanse of nothingness? This is the truest form of human longing and search ~ re-searching for meaning and purpose.

However, what I have been taught, especially over the last few years, is that meaning and purpose arise from the nothingness - the not-knowing, the lack of control - and that expanse is what life truly is. It's the silence, the unknown, that poses the most profound challenge of our life as we figure out what makes us tick and hopefully leads us to offering kindness and gratitude to others as they search for their own purpose.

When I observe people, including myself, I realize that our struggles, needs, wants, and actions define us as souls searching for a purpose. Is it true that finding purpose can only truly come from within? Is it not the reaching for more?

Could it be… that thought should accompany action, never be a substitute for it.