An undeniable fact is that none of us asked to be born.

At least I don’t recall floating around as a microscopic speck somewhere inside a black hole and saying, “Is it my turn yet to come into the world?”

I mean we all know what physically had given us life, but what we don’t know is why me and why you, unique individuals once nonexistent, but then suddenly we became a breathing and growing organism and not knowing what to with this thing called life.

We have questions without answers. Were we born with a preset system of attitudes and behaviors or did we come into this world with a blank slate, a mind completely devoid of knowledge and opinions, ready to be filled with ideas, first by our parents and then by the environment we grow up in.

Speaking of that environment, geography has influenced our thoughts and behaviors and even the way we talk. Living in Pennsylvania now for 13 years, I say my sentences with a bit of an inflection of the last word. That’s Pennsy talk. If I lived in Alabama, I’d be speaking through the accent of the classic Southern drawl.

Geography largely determines our friendships, our romantic relationships, and even our marriages. Just think if you lived in Missouri for quite some time, you’d have a Joe instead of a Jimmy as you best friend and you’d be married to somebody other than the one that you now kiss good night before you go to bed.

We do know that we have free will. We make decisions and choices every day. We make plans. We try to realize our expectations. But we also know that our free will often disappoints us.

We make bad decisions. We make the wrong choices. Our plans don’t work out and expectations are left unfulfilled.

Our GPS for life’s destiny detours into different directions, sends us into the unknown with a voice from the universe that silently shouts, “Proceed to the route.”

When life closes a door and then opens another, I have to believe that there’s a greater force moving us along, one that helps guide our free will into better decisions. One day, I walk a familiar path to a familiar place, but the next day, I’m stepping on stars above a universe that is nearly 14 billion years old, not knowing where I’m going, but somehow trusting that I’m heading in the right direction, I’m on the right road toward finding happiness.

When I arrive at my new destination, I can rely on my intuition to find a purpose as to why I was given the privilege of having a life that I had never asked for.

It was his purpose for Martin Luther King to bring about the civil rights movement so that social change would allow equal rights for all people.

It was her purpose for Erin Brockovich to win a lawsuit against PSE&G in California for contaminating ground water in 1993.

It was his purpose for a recovered alcoholic to become an inspirational teacher at age 50. It was her purpose for a woman to delight everyone in her neighborhood with the beautiful flowers she grows in her garden.

Once purpose is realized, what follows will be contentment and peace of mind. Rainy days will still have blue skies. A bad day at work is still a good day to be alive. Our joys are cherished.

Our sorrows are understood as inevitable circumstances that happen to everyone. We grieve our lost love ones, but we cherish the memories they have left us and in the right place and at the right time, we smile when we think of them and perhaps we even laugh until our sides hurt.

How do we find purpose? Henry David Thoreau wrote that during long droughts, the willow tree will redirect its roots toward water, the source and energy of life.

He made the analogy that when we feel we are just existing and not thriving, we should redirect our lives toward the source of our life’s beginning, an energy that created us so we can bring our passion into our purpose.

Imagine if the universe turned itself upside down. We could walk through clouds every day and step upon the stars at night. What an inspiration!

Stepping outside the box of every day existence fuels the ideas of great thinkers who transcend their imaginations into realities. When Galileo studied celestial objects and defied popular belief in the 17th century to claim that the sun, not the earth was the center of the universe, he had revolutionized a common belief.

His life’s purpose was to enlighten the world through his fascination with science.

We are all Galileos. Each of us possesses something special that can enlighten our little worlds, by way of a song, a painting, a handmade birdhouse or a comforting hand upon the shoulder of a frightened child.

We were born not to travel dusty roads to nowhere, but to arrive at a destination to bring potential to performance, to know that when our lives end, we will have solved the mystery of our birth given to us by a higher power at the precise moment we took our first breath outside the womb.

The next time you hear the voice in your soul say, “Proceed to the route,” take the detour. Exercise your special talent that you might have put aside for far too long.

You and I have been given gifts of purpose from the same life force that created this incredible universe.

All we need to do is step upon the stars.

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com.