Last week, we answered the question, “What do we desire to be?” And we said that we desire to be alive, to be present, and to be loving. If these are what we desire to be, then the question that we need to ask now is this, “What do we long to do?”
I have three answers: We long to create. We long to connect. And we long to contribute.
First, we long to create. It is in our nature to create. Regardless of our profession, we are creative artists. We long to carve, to craft, to create. When you stop creating, you start decaying. You don’t want that to happen, do you? Today, live that longing to create.
Sometimes you wonder why a high performer at work suddenly quits. When you ask him, he will say, “I don’t feel challenged anymore. It seems that I am not growing.” And when you ask him further, he will say, “I am not creating something new anymore. It seems that I’m done in this company. It’s time for me to create new things in a new environment.”
Your story may be different from this man but you share that longing to create. Continually create.
Second, we long to connect. They say, life is nothing without connection. It’s true. Inherent to living our life is our longing to connect. When you stop connecting, you start isolating. And when you isolate yourself, you stun your growth. And when you stop growing, you start dying. You don’t want that to happen, do you? Today, live that longing to connect.
Sometimes you wonder why a member leaves a group. There are several reasons but one of them is revealed in the answer of a woman who says, “I don’t feel like I belong. I don’t have friends here.” What she is saying is, “I don’t feel connected.”
Your story may be different from this woman but you share that longing to connect.
Third, we long to contribute. Success is not success unless it is shared. In the movie Into the Wild, it says, ‘Happiness is real only when shared.’ That is why wise people teach us to live a life of success and significance. You live a life of significance when you give, when you contribute. When you stop contributing, you start losing your sense of meaning. And when you lose your sense of meaning, you lose your longing to live. You don’t want that to happen, do you?
Sometimes you wonder why a seemingly successful person suddenly stops what he is doing, gets insane, lose all that he has, or the sad worst – kills himself. We ask, “How could he do that? He is so successful?” We wonder and we realize that those unfortunate things happen because they are not satisfying that longing to contribute. They may have gone so busy and blinded that they forgot to reconnect to that longing to be of contribution to the world or even to just one other person.
You don’t have to experience what they had experienced but you share that longing to contribute.
These are the things that we long to do. To create, to connect, and to contribute. It can be done in a great scale or small scale. It doesn’t matter. What matters is you live these longing with what you have right now, in the present. This is a big challenge for you and me. But if we are to continue living, we have to live these longings. In our own small ways.
Go live to create, connect, and contribute!
The third question: What do we need to have (to be able to do what we long to do)? We will answer next Sunday.
(Chris Dao-anis, CPA, ACG, ALB is a speaker, trainer, and writer on personal and organizational leadership. His latest book ‘Living Large in the Little Things’ is available at Mt. Cloud Bookshop, Casa Vallejo, Upper Session Road, Baguio City. For talks and trainings, email him at chrisdaoanis@gmail.com or visit www.chrispoweracademy.com. He will be conducting the first C3 Workshop: Command Your Career Confidently in Baguio City on August 6. For more details, log on to www.chrispoweracademy.com/c3w or contact 0948-114-2013.)