Larissa's Story

By age 20, Larissa was already deeply familiar with heartbreak and tragedy. In high school, she lost a long-time friend to leukemia; over the course of her freshman year in college, three of her sorority sisters were killed in separate tragic accidents. In spite of her generally happy and hopeful personality, these deeply sobering experiences prompted unbearable sadness and confusion. Her mind was consumed by questions: Why had her friends been taken? Why was she still here? What is this life for, anyway? 

Larissa related, "Eventually I came to realize that I probably would never understand the reasons behind these young women's untimely deaths. And as time passed, I became less focused on why they had died, and more concerned with why and how I should live.... I came to believe that with the gift of life comes the responsibility to live in a manner that allows for the realization of one's unique capacity for greatness--for the fulfillment of one's unique purpose" (Rainey, 2014).

Try This:          

Let’s start with a simple 10-minute exercise. For each of the three items below: read the question to yourself, reflect on it for a few minutes, and write down whatever comes to your mind. Do this separately for each question.

“What do I want my life to be about?”

“If anything were possible, what would I like to see in my life?”

“What do I want to offer to the world?”

OK, what was that exercise like for you? Did responses come easily, or was it hard to write anything down at all? With the thoughts you did record, how do you feel about them? Looking at what you wrote, does it generate strong feelings of satisfaction and motivation? Does what you wrote have clear implications for how you will act and how you should spend your time? Is it really YOU, or more what you think others would want from you? The objective of this lesson is to help you reflect on and clearly articulate your current life purpose, providing you with an anchor to manage life’s challenges and distractions, and a compass for living an authentic, rich, and meaningful life.