A Purpose

Not since I've been a camper at summer church camp or been a student in college have I come across something that forced me to take a hard look at my life the way I did today. The website is http://www.johnplaceonline.com/ and the articles in particular were the series on synergy.

To define your life message and life purpose is a daunting task. It's particularly daunting because I see humanity as four groups of people:
* Those who know their purpose and are fulfilling it;
* Those who know (or believe they know) purpose, yet are spending their time in a career or lifestyle that is not working toward that purpose;
* Those "happy fools" (as I call them) who are perfectly content working their 9-to-5 days, happy with their jobs, and no real "greater purpose" exists for them; and
* Those who know no purpose and are also unfulfilled on a daily basis (unhappy with jobs if they have them, no real motivation to accomplish or succeed at anything).

I don't believe those are ranked from best to worst. Obviously the first is best and the last is worst, but I struggle to rank the second and third in my unnumbered list above. I'm almost persuaded that the happy fool is better off than the unfulfilled mission. That's why I say defining your life purpose and mission is a daunting task--once you "eat of the treee of the knowledge of good and evil", you can never return to the innocence possessed before. That is, once you have defined your life purpose, you can't recant later on and say you have no purpose. Saying that would be a lie. You have a purpose and are now choosing not to fulfill it.

I encourage you to spend some time on this site. He writes from a very religious-neutral standpoint, but many of his principles appear to be Bible-based. These concepts would be very easily ported into sermons. I bring up faith here because I'm getting to what I've defined as my life message and purpose. This could change over time, as it has changed since graduating from college 14 years ago, but for today it is:

My desire is to help people know the Lord and walk with Him daily. I want
to help organizations—such as camps, churches, and Bible colleges—financially
and physically. In order to be able to afford to do this, I choose to make
my living as a private business owner involved in website development for
college athletic departments. I have chosen this line of work because I am
a former sports information director at the college level, and coach and
athletic director at the high school level.

So now you know a little more about me, and what makes me tick. I don't publish that in an effort to get more business because someone might be sympathetic to my cause. I'm not going around selling candy bars for $1. I do the line of work because I love it and believe I do it well. I'd rather my motivation, and what I do with my profit, stay private and personal, but because of the topic at johnplace, perhaps I can inspire someone else to define a purpose and life message.

Another thing that I found in another article was this line:
"Do you understand and approve of the reasons you live your life the way you do?"

Can you read that sentence and justify any bad habit you've allowed to creep into your life? What obstacle/sin exists that you can't defeat just once? Just once? Let's say it's smoking. I choose that because right now my father, a lifelong smoker, is experiencing heart disease, kidney disease, Parkinson's disease, and partial blindness brought on by a series of strokes that is also limiting his mobility. He will be confined to a wheelchair or hospital bed soon, or he'll suffer that final stroke that will shut down a crucial part of the brain and that will be the end. He just turned 64, a man who did physical labor all his life after military in Vietnam, and if he'd never picked up a cigarette, it's safe to say he'd still be operating his own flooring installation business. My son is five, and quite likely he won't have a grandfather by his sixth birthday. He did a little better than I, though: my last grandfather died when I was six months old. Of lung cancer.

Can you make it through the next temptation to smoke? That's the only one we're worried about right now. Let's skip this one cigarette break. It will be both tougher and easier to skip the second cigarette break: tougher because of the nicotene withdrawal, but easier because you have a victory under your belt now. Ok, let's go for #3. Don't tell yourself, "well, I'll smoke the third one; I'm trying to wean myself off." So, you're going to wean off poison? Drinking less poison will help the recovery process??? Drinking NO poison is what will restore you to health!

Do you understand and approve of the reasons you live your life the way you do?

When you can say yes to that question in all honesty, you're reaching your potential or heading to the bottom. "Drugs or Jesus", as Tim McGraw sings. Tomorrow can be better than today. Reach that potential.

With only one post in June ...

I look like a slacker. So here's the second one, and perhaps final one, for the month.

Last night there was a terrible fire in West Ashley (for non-Charleston-area folks, that's inside the Charleston city limits, west of the Ashley River) that killed nine firefighters. If you haven't seen it on national (and even international news), the Sofa Super Store caught fire and as the place heated up, the roof collapsed killing all inside. Our prayers are with the families of these brave men. On a business note, sympathies to the Sofa Super Store for the losses they will now incur due to this loss. Insurance does not "make everything right again"; it only softens the blow of such a loss.

What's going on in the backyard? The squirrel death toll is now up to five. And no matter what Rosie O'Donnell says, the squirrels are the real terrorists, not me. But I am the one with a firearm ...

Rogers State University is just about to unveil its new site, and the Sunshine State Conference will roll out in a couple of weeks. Midwestern State and Southern Wesleyan will unveil probably in the early part of August. There could be a major influx of customers over the next few weeks and months, and when I can say more about it, I will.

New Clients Set to Debut in Summer '07

Take a minute to welcome to the family new clients that will launch prior to fall semester 2007.

Sunshine State Conference: The good folks at one of the premier conferences in Division II will be joining the ATHLETICSITE.COM family in June. Three of its members--Rollins, Saint Leo, and Tampa--are already clients and were instrumental in bringing the conference into the fold.
Rogers State University: RSU Athletic Director Wren Baker was formerly at Southeastern Oklahoma State, that became a client in October 2006, and knew a good thing when he saw it.
Midwestern State University: Following SOSU's lead, Midwestern will be ATHLETICSITE.COM's second Lone Star Conference client. It will make the fourth client west of the Mississippi River and first in the great Republic of Texas.
Southern Wesleyan University: This is the school where the Mike Gillespie without the tarnished image coaches! I count Mike as a long-time friend from my days at Newberry College, and he's labored hard to make the partnership happen up in Central. What other website design firm has six college clients in South Carolina?
Lincoln Memorial University: The Harrogate, Tenn., institution will make the third South Atlantic Conference school to become a client. We didn't get started early enough last year to make this a reality, but everything is in place for a July launch this time around.

Also, look for redesigns at Coker College and Charleston Southern University!