 All experts recommend having goals in our lives to feel accomplished and live a fulfilling life. But what intentions will best serve us? In thinking about it, our deepest intention is to grow into people of depth, integrity, and compassion—continually maturing our character so that who we are reflects our highest values. Together, we seek to create relationships filled with love, trust, and understanding, where genuine connection and mutual growth can flourish. Through our lives and work, we aspire to contribute meaningfully to the world, using our unique gifts to inspire, uplift, and help create a more compassionate and harmonious future for all. I believe that we can simply this into three life goals: mature my character, create loving relationships, and make a contribution to the world.
1. Mature My Character: Learning to love and care about others is an essential part of life. A person’s character is like a work of art, and we are like a sculptor, shaping and polishing our stone to reveal its innate beauty, our God given qualities. In our families, communities, and churches, we are really about character education. By practicing good habits that deepen the mind and beautify the heart, we are cultivating our character until those acts of giving, helping, and loving become ingrained within us. Winnie the Pooh said it best, "Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart." 2. Create Loving Relationships: We really need other to truly polish our character. American author Robert Fulghum's book, "All I ever needed to know, I learned in Kindergarten," shows the simplicity of how we are meant to relate to each other. He says what a better place our world can be if we live each day like this. To make loving relationships, we must achieve a certain level of maturity through working on the first goal. And the only thing that we can leave behind is our family and our community-those who we love and love us. For more on Robert Fulghum's book: life-skills-learned-in-kindergarten.html 3. Make a Contribution to the World: We all deserve to invest time and energy into finding out that thing that we were born to do. Become an expert in something or finding the thing(s) that inspires you and use it to help others. If you don’t know what that is yet, that is ok. Pray about it, try things out, put yourself in situations where you can try new experiences. Challenge yourself to grow, collaborate with others, share ideas, look for someone else who is doing something that sparks your interest and help them out. In the process, you will learn more about yourself. And it is essential to keep growing no matter our age. Two books that I recommend for support in this area are:
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