How Jerry Seinfeld Taught Me About Purpose

Jerry Seinfeld has a comedic bit about the idea of why men wear a tuxedo at a wedding, so that if the groom were to be a no show then the best man could take a step to his left and the ceremony could just keep humming along. This is why the priest/pastor says, "Will you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband," because the language needs to be generic for such a scenario.

Believe me it's a hilarious bit, and it actually taught me a fair amount about purpose.

I thoroughly enjoy the creative aspect of my work and it feels like something, or better someone, is calling out to me from deep within. It's as if God is whispering, "I need you to do this work because there is no one else who can do what you do. This work depends on your unique touch." If I don't show up, if I don't live my life expressed through this wiring that God has weaved into me, well, there isn't someone a step to the left "dressed" to fill in.

So my soul soars when I am invited to create, to arrange words and craft sermons that help unleash truth for people in such a way they can grab hold of it.  The empty canvas is waiting for me to collect words from the bottomless bucket of my soul, where God keeps inserting fresh supplies each and every day. It is beautiful, a gift, and I endlessly say "thank you God!"

So on the other side of this idea of purpose and uniqueness, then, is being a cog in society's generic machine. You know, getting by, just plodding along trying to pay the bills. This machine functions in order to keep you and I busy doing the mindless drivel that can lead to waking up 25 years from now wondering, "Where did it all go, and why did I just let it go?". No uniqueness required here, just punch the time card and sleep walk until you hear the whistle blow.

Death - to - my - soul.

This machine is brilliant in it's design, in it's ability to keep you running on a wheel trying to get the cheese, yet it will forever be out of reach. Run little mouse run. There are a lot of things that just beg for our participation, for us to jump on the wheel that isn't going anywhere. We have created a dictionary full of words and phrases to describe this, but we haven't done anything to shut the machine down. Busy work, grunt work, the mundane, and on and on the pages turn. When I find myself in this rut, when I'm asked to be a cog in the machine, my soul shrivels up like a leech dipped in salt.

So my question is, how do you tell the tailor he can keep the tux? How do you hang a sign that says this assembly line is permanently out of order? Because maybe like me, your soul hungers to wear something a bit more unique, to live a life a life that is a bit more, you.