"Everyone's life is driven by something.
Most dictionaries define the verb drive as "to guide, to control, or to direct."
Whether you are driving a car, a nail, or a golf ball, you are guiding, controlling, and directing it at that moment. What is the driving force in your life?
Right now, you may be driven by a problem, a pressure, or a deadline. You may be driven by a painful memory, a haunting fear, or an unconscious belief. There are hundreds of circumstances, values and emotions that can drive your life. Here are five of the most common ones:
1.
Many people are driven by guilt. They spend their entire lives running from regrets and hiding their shame. Guilt-driven people are manipulated by memories. They allow their past to control their future. They often punish themselves by sabotaging their own success.
"You will be a restless wanderer on the Earth." That describes most people today- wandering through life without a purpose.
We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.
2.
Many people are driven by resentment and anger. They hold on to hurts and never get over them. Instead of releasing pain through forgiveness, they rehearse it over and over in their minds. Some resent-driven "clam up" and internalize their anger, while others "blow up"and explode it onto others. Both responses are unhealthy and unhelpful.
Resentment always hurts you more than the it does the person you resent. While your offender has probably forgotten the offense and gone on with life, you continue to stew in your pain, perpetuating your pain.
Listen: Those who have hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through resentment. Your past is past! Nothing will change it. You are only hurting yourself with your bitterness. For your own sake, learn from it, and then let it go.
"To every worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish, senseless thing to do."
3.
Many people are driven by fear. Their fears may be a result of a traumatic experience, unrealistic expectations, growing up in a high-control home, or even genetic predisposition. Regardless of the cause, fear-driven people often miss great opportunities because they're afraid to venture out. Instead they play it safe, avoiding risks and trying to maintain the status quo.
Fear is a self-imposed prison that will keep you from becoming what you were intended to be. You must move against it with the weapons of faith and love.
"Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life- fear of death, fear of judgement- is one not fully formed in love.
4.
Many people are driven by materialism. Their desire to acquire becomes the whole goal of their lives. This drive to always want more os based on the misconceptions that having more will make me more happy, more important and more secure, but all three ideas are untrue. Because things do not change, we eventually become bored with them and then want newer, bigger, better visions.
It's also a myth that if I get more, I will be more important. Self-worth and net worth are not the same. Your value is not determined by your valuables, and the most valuable things in life are not things!
The most common myth about money is that having more will make me more secure. It won't. Wealth can be lost instantly through a variety of uncontrollable factors.
5.
Many people are driven by the need for approval. They allow the expectations of parents or spouses or children or teachers or friends to control their lives. Many adults are still trying to earn the approval of unpleasable parents. Others are driven by peer pressure, always worried about what others might think. Unfortunately, those who follow the crowd usually get lost it.
I don't know all the keys to success, but one key to failure is to try to please everyone. Being controlled by the opinions of others is a guaranteed way to miss the higher purpose for your life.
There are other forces that can drive your life but all lead to the same dead end: unused potential, unnecessary stress and an unfulfilled life.
Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction and events without reason. Without a purpose, life is trivial, petty and pointless."
The above made me ponder about this ultimate question for a long time:
What's the purpose of my life?
