What's your missing piece?

Not too many years ago I went through a tough stage of transition.   I was unfocused, confused, and lost.  My mother had been diagnosed with colon cancer a few months prior. I spent a month with her in Ohio while she received her chemo therapy.   That experience served as a reality check for me.  I had never seen my mother in so much pain; she looked helpless.  I couldn't help but think about how strong and  full of life she had been at my age. That thought brought me to a different place.  A place of truth, the truth that we will all become fragile and dependent one day.

It ignited in me a sense of urgency that I didn't know what to do with.  An urgency to do what? was my question.  I'm married, I have kids, and I have a college degree, I don't care about material things so that's nothing to have an urgency about.  So pretty much I have everything I've ever wanted.   What was I missing? I thought about my mother's life and how she had devoted it to service and even to this day at 71 years old she is still serving others.

When I came back home, I felt differently about life.  I understood on a deeper level how fragile it truly is.  That realization sent me into unsteady ground.  I didn't feel like I was doing what I was put on this earth to do.  I didn't think I was being all that I could be, nor giving all that I could give. I wasn't excited about anything. I didn't feel much purpose nor did I have a drive towards anything meaningful; I was just going through the motions.

 I was missing that thing that puts a sparkle in your eyes.  Many of you might know what I'm talking about.  I'm not being ungrateful for what I have; I love my life, and my family is everything to me.  However I had to admit that my mother had never lost that sparkle, she is always on a mission to help someone, to make someones life easier and happier.

I understand now, that the missing piece of my puzzle had nothing to do with what I was missing for myself.  It had to do with me living my best life for the sake of making the world a better place by writing, hugging, loving, sharing and helping.   In that moment I began to challenge myself to reach beyond my comfort zone for the sake of serving.  Needless to say.... my sparkle is back :)