A few years ago, as a very proud mother, I attended my son’s convocation ceremony. As they do for every graduation event, the university invited a well-accomplished leader in their subject to give a speech and to get the title of honorary Ph.D. for his accomplishments.

When he started giving his speech, which was extremely inspiring especially for newly graduate young people in the room, and told us about his amazing background, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about how a huge difference he’d made in thousands of peoples’ lives.

That automatically made me think about myself. What have I accomplished so far? What do I want to accomplish from this point on? Am I happy with who I am? How can I get to a better version of myself? Even though I am proud of my achievements which are still big for me, they were nowhere near to that gentleman’s impressive successes.

Did you ever think about what your purpose in life is? Even if you have, did you determine a specific scope for your path? This might be one of the hardest and most stressful questions to ask yourself. Why are you here, at this time, at this location, doing these specific things, with these specific people around you?

Every person comes to this world to accomplish things, small or big. We are all pieces of a big puzzle and even if one piece is missing the puzzle cannot be considered complete. So we are all as important as any other piece. What you did in the past is not an indication of what you will do tomorrow. Maybe you have done a lot of meaningful things for many people in the past and now you are living a more secluded life. Or maybe you did the opposite and tomorrow you will change someone’s life in a very positive way.

I have returned home with several questions in my mind and reflected for a little while on these thoughts. I have turned towards my inner self and my soul. I started meditating even more religiously every day, tried to improve my awareness of all my senses. I tried to learn more about myself. Because I know very well that the path to improving yourself and finding your purpose passes through knowing and understanding yourself better. Listening to yourself, having peaceful and calm moments while you contemplate what you want from life, about what makes you tick.

I think; to find your life purpose, the first step is to acknowledge the great gifts that were bestowed on you. The second step is to use those talents on something that lights your passion. And the third one is to align your efforts with something that helps create a greater good.

Think about it. Because the world needs passionate, happy people working together to make it a better place.