A Life's Purpose and Onion Rings

Today, I ate an onion ring. For the first time in my life. No kidding.

I have had battered shrimp and calamari before and I know what sauteed onions taste like. I like both of those things. And yet, until today, I always passed on the onion ring when someone waved one at me. It just looked dubious to me.

Of course, the onion ring was perfect. I don't know how I lived this long without them.

And yet, even though I knew the individual parts that make an onion ring, I was not prepared for how good the ACTUAL, for real thing would be. I couldn't imagine it and I would NEVER have tried an onion ring had my husband not insisted I close this gap in my American culinary experience.

It was soo good that I skipped the battered shrimp instead just so I could eat more onion rings.

What a revelation!

We have altogether too high expectations of our everyday revelations. We think that we have to know exactly what we want before we're five years old or that our purpose will rush into our lives like a thirsty lover who's been lost at sea for a decade.

A life's purpose. That is such a monumental, grandiose statement. Only the cheese log at aunt Mae's barbeque has more gravity. Seriously. At aunt Mae's, everyone heads to the table where the cheese log is like it's salvation spread on a cracker. Perhaps it is.

A life's purpose. It should feel big, shouldn't it?

It should drop on us like a ton of bricks. If angels wanted to sing along, we'd take those, too, because who doesn't like a choir of heavenly voices announcing that we have finally unlocked the path to divine happiness. You know, yoga influencer style.

So we wait.

And we think.

We fret.

And we watch inspirational content, hoping that one of those ah-ha moments s going to be "it".

But clarity doesn't work like that.

The way to bake the cake to end all cakes is to bake many, many cakes and make adjustments each time. The way to figure out if you like onion rings is to try them.

The way to find your favourite foods is to try many foods and slowly inch closer to what you like.

The way to find your purpose is to do things with your life and inch closer to what feels like that onion ring. The yummy small things will lead you to the yummy big things. That's how you get from a single onion ring to a whole platter of deep-fried goodness, cheese, and a life's purpose.

You put things together and then give them a go.