Live a More Purposeful and Fulfilling Life

By Kristi King-Morgan, LMSW

There should be more to life than waking up, going to work, paying bills, doing chores, and going to bed only to start over again the next day. Many people say they feel as if they are merely surviving rather than living a fulfilling life. If you feel that you are struggling to exist day-to-day and seem to have no purpose other than getting through each day, you are not alone!  The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way.

The key is GOAL SETTING and BALANCE. Setting specific goals in seven areas of your life and actively working towards fulfilling these goals will help you feel like life has more meaning and purpose. You will have more satisfaction with your life and be overall happier than when you are just drifting and trying to survive day-to-day. 

Take a piece of paper and make a list with the seven areas identified below. Write down your goal for each area, and if you don’t have a goal for a specific area, create one. This exercise will help you identify the areas of your life that you have been neglecting.  Once you have identified the areas that you are not working on, begin to think of how you can develop some goals and start working on all of these areas.  These steps will help you begin to live a life with more direction and purpose.

1. FAMILY – maybe you need to focus more attention on your family.Maybe you need to work on better communication with them, or work on building intimacy with your partner. No matter what stage of life you are in, there are goals you can set in this area! They will change as your family changes, but change doesn’t mean end. Respecting your elders, caring for children, setting reasonable goals for education, fun, and safety at all ages is important.Young people often find it easy to set goals such as getting married or having children, but as family dynamics change over time, some people have a difficult time changing their relationships with family members to meet the new goals. When children leave home and you find yourself with an empty nest, your goals may change to include in-laws and grandchildren.
   
2. SOCIAL – Often people neglect a social life when they start a family or are focusing on building a career. While it is hard to maintain a social life while fulfilling all your adult roles, it is still important.Your social life will change but it does not need to be nonexistent.Make friends, do volunteer work, plan outings with coworkers - whatever you have to do to maintain a life outside of family and outside of work that is reasonable.Some people like to have weekly card games, or if weekly is too much then every other week or maybe just once a month.Develop a hobby. Remember, the key is balance. You don’t need to completely neglect a social life when you are building a family and a career, but you also don’t need to neglect your family or career to try to keep the same social life you may have had when you were young and single.
3. FINANCIAL – I know money isn’t everything, but it is a necessity.What are your financial goals?Are you planning for retirement?Are you already retired?Even someone on a fixed social security income can still have financial goals.Budgeting, planning, and careful management of money is important. Whether it is to save for a vacation, luxury purchase, or making sure you have money set aside for sudden unexpected needs like roof repairs or new tires on your car, you need to have a clear plan for how you handle your money. If you live paycheck to paycheck, have to check your bank balance to see if there’s any money in it when you need to buy something, don’t know how much cash you currently have in your purse or wallet, and are often blindsided by unexpected expenses and have to scramble to borrow money to cover these expenses, this is a good indication that this area of your life needs more attention.
4. EDUCATION/PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT:You should never stop learning no matter what age you are.Set some goals when it comes to education.Learn a new word each day, read a book, stay up to date on new studies in your field if you have a job, do word puzzles or Sudoku, whatever you need to do to further your education on a daily basis.
5. CAREER – Set career goals.Trying to find a job?Trying to climb the ladder on your current job?Even if you are retired or disabled you can find something that fulfills you that you can do. Do some volunteer work, pick up trash by the side of the road, bake cookies once a week for a different neighbor, or deliver Meals on Wheels.Sign up to teach Sunday School or offer to babysit once a month for a young couple to have a date night.Retirement shouldn’t mean that you don’t have any more work to do. Whether you are getting paid or are volunteering your time, find meaningful work to do no matter what age you are.
6. SPIRITUAL – What are your spiritual goals?If you go to church, set goals such as reading your bible on a regular basis, or attending regular services.If church is not your thing, give to charity or find meaning in your life in some way.Meditation and prayer are good options to begin.Get in touch with whatever your higher power is, even if it is simply taking the time to appreciate nature.
7. PHYSICAL – Your physical health is important yet all too often we neglect it until we have medical trouble such as diabetes or hypertension.Set goals for healthy eating, exercising, and proper grooming. Don’t skip regular checkups with your doctor and dentist. Becoming out of shape or overweight may cause depression, and this throws your life out of balance. Having to deal with a chronic health issue can also cause depression and anxiety, and can affect other areas of your life in major ways.Many young and middle aged individuals neglect their health while they focus too much of their time on goals in other areas.
   

If you find yourself devoting too much time to one of these areas and not enough in another, you may need to reprioritize and readjust your goals to achieve better balance. Don’t make excuses for neglecting certain areas. It may be easy to justify neglecting some areas to focus more fully on others at certain times in your life, but a life out of balance is usually more stressful and can cause more depression, anxiety, and unhappiness than a well-rounded and balanced life.

The Books.  Don’t.  Matter.
By Nick “Novel” Gabanski
 
 
            I remember a time when a book got a movie deal and the movie was made to almost the exact detail of the book.  Granted, some details had to be left out because there’s a limited amount of time for a movie to show the whole story; whereas the book can take as long as it pleases to go in depth with descriptions and character development.  And people loved it.  But these days, well…  these days when a book gets a movie-deal, all the movie shares in common with it is the title, the characters, and a shadow of the actual plot.  So what happened?  Why did movies based on books start to deviate so very far from the authors’ creations?
            Before I attempt to answer that, let me explain something.  When an author creates a novel and gets it published, usually what occurs is a contract that involves the author’s rights to the book.  And when someone from Hollywood comes along and talks business about turning that novel into a movie, the publishing company is usually the one who makes the deal and not the author.  This is usually the case.  In essence, the author has no say in how the movie is made.  This could easily attribute to why movies these days are not even close to accurate to the books they are based on.  But if that were the case, then movies would always be done with little to no similarity to the book.
            So Hollywood directors and producers actually did care about how the story was done and tried to represent it in the film medium as best they could for a time.  So again, what happened?  Well, there’s this word that in and of itself is quite harmless, but when applied to the film industry… it’s rather evil.  The word is: interpretation.  Recently, directors and producers have taken to using the word “interpretation” as a shield from critics by saying, “This is my interpretation of the book!”  But therein lies the problem.  The book often doesn’t need someone else’s interpretation. As the saying goes: “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” 
Indeed, because so many directors these days feel the need to impress their own visions on something that is already created, I for one have come to lower my expectations greatly when it comes to movies based off books. When my dad and I read a book and it became a movie, we saw it and then we analyzed and compared the book to the movie.  Perhaps that is a dying way of thinking, as I’ve heard more and more that the books don’t matter when it comes to the movies.  “The movies should be able to stand on their own without any criticism about how unrelated they are to the books.”  That is commonly what other people have told me.  Well, hate to say it, but most movies these days that are based on books that “stand alone” from the book are, quite frankly, terrible.
Think of it like this: each book is like a package of varied cookies. What directors do is open the package, take one or two cookies that they like, throw the rest away, and then proceed to attempt to bake their own varied cookies.  Only their baking skills are that of a child’s compared to the expert job the author did.  Who in their right mind throws away a box of perfectly baked cookies?  No one, right?  Unfortunately, that is exactly what the latest trend in Hollywood is: take a few things, throw the rest away and “create” your own material. It needs to stop.
 
 
Edited by: Maddy D.

Grounds for Separation
 
There's nothing wrong with you.
We both know this is true
 
but there's something wrong with me
and you know what that is.
 
It's the elephant in the room
standing on our mantel
 
trumpeting "I'm here!"
I'll call when I find out
 
what's wrong with me
and then I'll buy a yo-yo
 
a shiny one with rhinestones
the kind we had as kids
 
and we can try that trick 
"walking the dog" again.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

Another Election
 
You can’t vote for him
and you can’t vote for her
and you can’t vote for the others
you've never heard of.
 
The others may not be as odd
but in your mind
their platforms are wobbly
one way or the other.
 
So you plan to write in
Justice Ginsberg,
who fits in with the others
in being out of the ordinary.
 
But you are fond of her smile.
It reminds you of Halloween
and this is just one more election.
What the hell.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

Another Four Years
 
You can learn a lot,
both true and false,
in a dingy all-night diner
 
where old men gather
at a table in back
drinking coffee 
 
holding loud debates
for counter folk not  
interested in their wisdom
 
amassed over many years.
The men say they don’t know
who’ll win the election
 
but they all agree 
the voters must choose
between a devil they know
 
and a devil they don’t
then live in Hades
another four years.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

A Paper Pauper on the Whistle Perch A National Election Novel by James R. Parrish
Dreaming Big Publications
Reviewed by Nicolette Hill
 
ABOUT THE BOOK
A compelling, moving, life-or-death story about the survival of American democracy and Christian morality. A Paper Pauper on the Whistle Perch is a heart-rending sensitive, moving story of fear and danger, pain and struggle, futility and immorality in American democracy, which, like all other democracies throughout history, is destroying itself. Franklin Jefferson Adams represents the rank and file American - a non-politician who wants all Americans to be able to pursue "the American dream" and to be able to vote in a system in which he is no longer forced to vote for "the lesser of two evils." Adams is the average American caught in a deteriorating government and society. In his fantasies, which are complete vignettes, he suffers the agonies of almost all social and religious problems in American today.
 
MY REVIEW
4/5 This book was a very interesting read, especially with an election coming up. It really makes you think about what could have happened and what could, potentially, happen in the future with the right circumstances. Franklin Jefferson Adams, a non-political man struggling to control his personal life, is thrown unwillingly into power in a world rife with terrorism and corruption. I think those who are frustrated with the politicians today would definitely enjoy reading this book. However, the vignettes that Adams has are almost too frequent to the point of being distracting from the plot, and they seemed to cover the same issues that the plot was already showcasing.
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author had 37 years as a newspaperman, teacher, and public relations official. He taught English and journalism for 22 years on the university level, and taught as Wallace Pack II prison, Windham School System, Texas Department of Corrections, and part-time in English at Blinn College.
His B.S. degree was in english-journalism and government-economics, his M.A. was in English, and his work for the Ph.D. was in communications with a minor in political science.
He attended the following uniersities: Texas, Stephen F. Austin, Oklahoma, Missouri, Southern Illinois, and Southern Mississippi.
 
DISCLAIMER: I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for writing a review. I was not obligated to give a positive review, and all thoughts are my own.
 

Bachelor's Song
 
When will you understand
it's all about me.
The world we live in
 
whirls around my axis.
Once you understand
I am the Sun
 
we can get married.
Until that happens,
step aside while I
 
hunt for the one
who truly understands
it's all about me,
 
the one who knows
the world we live in
whirls around my axis.
 
She must be pretty.
That's how I see it.
Take it from me.
 
 
Donal Mahoney