Has Your Life Had a Beginning?

I am a sucker for great quotes.  Here's one I like.

"Fear not that your life

will come to an end

but that it will never

have a beginning."

John Henry Newman, British theologian

Coasting
     Drifting along
          Aimless living
               Meandering
                    Wandering
                         Come what may living


Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? That’s a great way to live on vacation, I suppose. But day to day?

I want to do some things with my life. I have stuff to write, speeches to give, thoughts to think, people to know, books to read, and my mind to fill with good stuff. God deliver me from drifting into aimlessness. It’s a maze in there, they say.

What do you want to do with your life? Do you have books to write? People to see? Places to go? Concepts to instill into fresh, fertile minds? Is there a mission, a passion that you are committed to that will better define your life?

What will it take to go after whatever it is you want? Is today, perhaps, a good day to make a new beginning?

I think that what John Henry Newman means by the above statement is this: what is your purpose for existing? What are you great at doing? What should you do above all other activities that could occupy your time? Where are your acres of diamonds and of what do they consist?

All of these thoughts are another way of saying “Has your life had a beginning?” Has anything captured your imagination so forcefully that you can’t help but respond to life and to this dominant thought?

Once we reckon with these questions then, I think, we have the beginnings of a beginning.

Once you know the answer to your driving motive for life, begin at the beginning. Begin now, today, whether you are ready or not, and take the first steps on this journey of living your life from the beginning. And when you come to the end, you will be able to look back and smile within and perhaps say, “I did some good along the way.” What a satisfying thought.

I hope you’ll be able to say …

“I made a difference.”
“I changed a life.”
“I lifted a load.”
“I encouraged some weary soul.”
“I showed someone a better way.”
“I helped lift someone from despair to determination.”
“I found a better way of doing ….”

“Has Your Life Had a Beginning?”