Burning to Live: Find the Purpose and Meaning of Your Life

By Yacoub Algusane

Life has no meaning without Purpose.
Although money does offer comforts and gives you power, it's meaningless without something to live for.
By the time I was 38, I had $40 million and all the toys you could possibly want.
But, no matter how much money you make or how powerful you are, the pleasure is only temporary.
I was empty on the inside.
Three years later, with no Purpose, I lost my focus, I lost my motivation, and I fell off-track.
My family fell apart.
I left it all to them. It was the only way I knew how to say sorry for my mistakes.
It took many years for me to learn the power of Purpose and to learn what my own purpose was.
Real meaning comes from transcending your own self-interests and contributing something that can make the world a better place to live.
The greatest men and women in our history were not the ones that took the most, rather the ones that gave the most.
This book is the story of how easy it is to fall off-track unless you have something that keeps you focused.
It helps you understand the power of focus, what the real pleasures in life are, and how to find and achieve your own purpose in life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543966817

Book preview

End

Chapter 1: Lighting the Fire

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.

Norman Cousins

December 17, 2010 was a cold, but beautiful sunny day in Sidi Bou Zeed, an impoverished city in the southern part of Tunisia.

At 11:30 a.m., Basboosa, a 24-year-old fruit vendor, stood in front of the town hall, doused himself with gasoline, and lit his body on fire.

The flames ravaged his body and eventually took two weeks to kill him.

But the fire inside had already consumed him long before the match was lit.

Basboosa’s suicide was not a political statement.

It was his way of relieving the torment of a life unable to fulfill its purpose.

His death touched the souls of thousands, and within a matter of days, there were riots on the streets of several countries.

Although I was dying inside because the fire was devouring me, I had to scramble to provide food and water and to protect my parents who had retired there.

Today, more than nine years later, tribal warfare continues to take the lives of thousands and leave even more thousands without homes.

We all have a fire burning within us.

We have to learn how to direct it to achieve our purpose, or it will consume us and leave us hollow.

Chapter 2:  The Deadline

Efforts and Courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

John F. Kennedy

Dad, I’m so scared of becoming homeless.

Don’t worry son, with a mind like yours; you won’t let that happen.

It’s funny how a conversation that took place almost 50 years ago could have been so prophetic.

I remember the place and time it happened; Washington DC, near Upton Street, and I was 15 years old.

It was the first day he gave me driving lessons.

It was also our first real father-son bonding moment.

He was right, may he rest in peace.

That’s not going happen.

That’s why December 31, 2019 (this year), is going to be my last day.

If after all the time and effort I’ve put into what I’m working on doesn’t pay off by that date, it’s never going to happen.

The cold hard truth is that my chances diminish as each day goes by.

I’m not suicidal, not depressive, nor am I a coward.

I’m just realistic.

I’m 63; diabetic, and I have knee problems, which make it hard to walk without a cane.

The other day I went to see a movie with my wife.

By the time I got back to the parking lot, I was in so much pain that I had to use a sling to lift my leg up and into the car.

What chance would I have on the streets?

Besides, I’ve seen what it does to you.

You’re better off dead.

This is all my fault.

I did this.

I can’t believe how stupid I was, how many mistakes I made.

When I was 42 years old, I walked away from over $40 million and left it all to my first wife and kids.

It was the only way I knew how to say I was sorry for what I had done.

I fell off track.

That began a downhill slide that almost ended in my death.

What I’m doing now isn’t for me, it’s for the person who came to me at my weakest moment and rekindled my will to survive.

She trusted me, she believed in me, and she stood by me no matter how hard things got.

It was her strength that gave me strength.

And the result was that I changed.

They say people never change.

That’s not true.

People can and do change if they have the right motivation, and that comes from having the right purpose.

Although I did change things, I’m still struggling.

I don’t care about luxuries or materialistic things, but my wife deserves more; she’s had a really tough life.

She’s never had anything, and what she did have was taken away from her.

Her first husband abused her and their two daughters.

The only way he agreed to give her custody was if she signed the house she bought with her own hard work over to him.

She raised them singlehandedly.

When we got married, all she asked was that I promise to help her two daughters through their schooling.

Now, one’s got a Ph.D., and the other has two Masters Degrees.

However, that’s not even close to what I owe her, what I want to give her.

If I stay alive, all I’ll do is burn up the rest of whatever money is left, and that won’t last more than a year or two.

But, after I’ve gone, and if her daughters support her as I know they will, she’ll at least be able to pay for her own food.

Do you know what it’s like to worry all the time?

Every night I fall asleep because I’m worn out.

But it doesn’t stop there.

I have a recurring nightmare that’s so real that I have to turn on the lights to reorient myself.

I’m in a green pasture, with beautiful trees, brightly colored flowers, and the sun is shining down.

I see the grass and the tree branches bending with the gentle wind.

But I can’t hear anything.

Although I’m standing, I’m in a glass coffin.

The box starts to get warmer, slowly at first, but soon the sweat is dripping from my hair onto the back of my neck.

As the temperature goes up, it’s getting harder to breathe.

I start to panic as I suddenly realize that the box is shrinking and that I’m using up all the oxygen.

As it gets harder and harder to breathe, I scream and pound on the walls.

My head is throbbing, and just when I think the veins in my head will explode, I wake up.

I want to lie still and calm down, but I have to get up and get a towel to dry my sweat.

The diabetes causes me to urinate every hour or so, and every time I try to go back to sleep, the worrying starts again.

I lie there trying to keep calm, to control my fear, to stop thinking.

Sometimes I succeed and get back to sleep.

Other times I don’t, and tears come to my eyes, and my heart beats so hard that my whole body shakes.

I force myself to get up and work.

Focusing on other things keeps the fear under control.

I wake up tired and go to sleep exhausted, how long can I keep that up?

I don’t even know if what I’m doing will pay off.

I took a big risk going down this path.

I had no choice; it was this or die empty.

But, as I said, my chances diminish day by day.

At least now I can say that I tried.

Like I said earlier, I’m not suicidal.

I’m trying to live.

I want to see my grandchildren.

I still hope to reunite with my own children.

I swim regularly; I watch what I eat, and I take my insulin, even though it costs me a lot.

Staying alive costs money, dying doesn’t.

If I’m going to live, I need to feel that I’m productive.

Not simply working, or donating, but that I’m contributing something of meaning to this world.

I tried to find a job, but no one would hire me above minimum wage, despite all my experience.

There’s no way I could have survived on that and still be able to contribute.

What I’m doing now is all I have left.

Setting a final day helps me in many ways because I define and limit what happens.

I’ll have no more worries because I know I have enough money to live that long.

I’ll leave something for my wife.

It won’t last long, but it’s better than nothing.

I’ll have time to prepare myself mentally.

I can concentrate on doing my work without falling into black holes.

I can enjoy every single minute left to me.

And I won’t be homeless.

I’m not asking for your pity.

What I am asking for is your understanding and forgiveness.

I let you down; I let down all of humanity.

I didn’t do my part.

I could and should have done more.

All I want is a second chance.

A chance to prove that I wasn’t just a waste of skin.

But I’m old enough to know that you don’t always get a second chance in life.

Chapter 3: The Two Most Important Days

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why.

Mark Twain

My life began seven years before I was born.

That was the first time my family lost their country to a foreign invasion.

Very few people saw it coming, including my father.

Even fewer managed to move out of the way.

He spent the next six years moving from one place to another, looking for a job in a country that would allow him to put down his roots and build a home.

Traumas like that can affect a family for generations.

From just about the day I could understand, he repeated the story to me.

"We lost everything, our home, our land, and all the money in the bank.

I don’t know what happened to our crops.

I don’t know what happened to the animals or the equipment either.

Everything.

But, we all got out in one piece, thank God for that.

We were lucky that your grandfather was living outside the country at the time.

At least we had somewhere to go."

A lot of families weren’t so lucky; they ended up living in tents.

Soon after that, my grandfather passed away, leaving debts and a large family that needed support.

As the eldest, my Dad (at 24 years of age) stepped up to take responsibility for his mother, three brothers, and seven sisters.

"At one point things got so bad that I used the last of our money to pay for medicine for my youngest brother.

But, as I’ve told you so many times, God will always provide to those who believe from ways they can never imagine.

I was never scared; I never lost my faith. I always believed.

When things were at their worst, someone knocked at our door, and our lives suddenly changed."

My mother confirms that the story is true.

The very next day someone came to the house looking for my Dad and offered him a job.

From that point on, his life changed completely.

According to him, from that day, one thing just seemed to lead to another.

It wasn’t until something like that happened to me that I really understood what he meant.

But how his life turned out was completely different to how mine is coming to an end.

You’ll see what I mean as you read on.

Was it luck?

Was it a divine miracle, was it destiny, or was it just a case of several coincidences strung together?

How about you?

Is where you are today the result of coincidence, your own decisions, or was it all meant to be?

Did you define, plan, and execute your purpose or did circumstances or others define it for you?

Or do you believe it was divinely ordained?

He told me that story more times than I can remember.

He also repeated his favorite phrase many times, God will always provide to those who believe from ways they can never imagine.

He tried hard to pass on his religious beliefs to me.

I wanted to believe; I wanted to have faith.

There was a time when I did, but now I’m not so sure, especially after what I went through.

I never got bored listening.

It gave me clarity; it showed me my place in the universe.

It gave me hope.

It gave me purpose and meaning.

It gave me a reason to live.

It also provided me with motivation and focus.

I vowed that I would never allow my family to suffer in the way that my dad’s family had suffered.

I wouldn’t wait for things to happen to me, or to fall into place.

I wouldn’t wait for a miracle; I would do things on my own.

By the time I was 9, he had become an Ambassador, and we lived in Washington DC.

Then it was Morocco.

When I was 17, he was assigned to Tokyo.

That’s when a motorcycle accident (incident?) put me in the hospital for three months.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, that’s when my journey began.

That’s when I learned how fragile life really is, and that it can change in the blink of an eye.

Becoming a multimillionaire several years later destroyed my family and nearly destroyed me.

Despite having given my family financial security and passports from two politically stable and secure countries, I woke up one day and realized it was all wrong.

Up until that point, I lived what many believe was a great life.

I did and saw more in 5 years than most people ever do in a lifetime.

I lived like a king, flew first class, owned penthouses, had top of the line cars, computers, giant TV screens, gold watches, motorcycles, and champagne, all of it.

But, none of it meant anything, and I don’t miss any of it.

None of it helped ease the pain.

I was empty on the inside.

I lost sight of my purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning or direction.

What’s the point of existing if you have nothing to live for?

My purpose in Life had seemed so clear, so inspired.

But it didn’t come from me.

It all happened as a reaction to events and to what well-meaning people told me.

I did what I thought I was supposed to do, instead of working it out for myself.

Several scientific studies have shown that having a strong sense of purpose is important to our mental health and welfare.

It’s our compass, our northern star, always pointing the right way.

Unless you work out your own purpose, one day you’ll realize that you’re living someone else’s idea of what your life should be.

I learned that the hard way.

Defining and achieving your purpose is not just a religious or intellectual exercise.

Nor is it just a part of the rites of passage into adulthood.

The need for purpose and meaning is something that stays with us throughout our entire lives.

It gives us something to look forward to and guides the fire of our passion.

Ask yourself this question: when it is that you feel fulfilled and most excited about your life?

If you’re like me, it’s when I’m focused and working on something meaningful; something that makes a difference.

It’s when I can see where I’m headed and when I can measure progress.

Without a purpose, that fire eats away at us until only a shell remains.

But, having a purpose alone isn’t good enough.

You have to continuously work to achieve it, and it has to transcend who you are.

In other words, it can’t be just about you.

Life is a one-way journey, there’s no going back or rewinding, so you’d better get it right as soon as possible.

Time is your most valuable resource, don’t waste it.

Purpose is your destination, how you get there, and how long it takes you are other matters you need to think about.

At one point I had power but no purpose.

I had power, but I didn’t know how to apply it.

Now I’ve got purpose but no power to see it through.

It wasn’t fate or destiny that brought me here; it was my own wrong choices.

I made those wrong choices because I wasn’t following a plan.

Had I done so, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

You wouldn’t go on a road trip or journey without knowing where you’re heading, would you?

The only way you’d end up where you need to be is by luck.

That’s not a smart way of doing things.

I wasted years just drifting looking for my purpose, for something to give meaning to my life.

It was only when I got caught in a revolution and saw the injured and dying that I truly understood.

But was it too late?

Had I lost my chance to redeem myself and contribute something to Life?

Have you ever asked yourself what your life is all about?

Have you ever questioned whether or not your life has any meaning?

Although I learned a lot from my successes, I learned much more from my mistakes.

I hurt a lot of people, but I mostly hurt myself.

But the biggest mistake I made was to waste so much of my life.

I don’t want the same to happen to you.

So, before I go, I want to try to contribute what I’ve learned to others, so they don’t make the same mistakes.

Here’s my story.

Chapter 4:  The Coincidental Nature of Destiny

Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.

Albert Einstein

Please. Excuse, my name is Gan. You speak the English very good. I have good friend, name Fei, Chinese lady like me; she learn English. You teach?

I turned around to answer the voice behind me.

Well, I did teach, but not anymore.

Good, please, you see her? She here now; in school. Come now? Over there. She was pointing at the school’s cafeteria.

Ah… I don’t teach anymore.

Yes, good, please; you come. Now please, see her.

Obviously, she didn’t understand what I was saying.

I had been at the International Students Japanese Language School in Okubo for six months now, but Gan was a new student.

She was in one of the classrooms next to mine, so I had seen her in the hallway a couple of times.

I had never spoken to her before; so I guess she must have heard me speaking in English to Joe. He was from Guam, in the same class as mine. Although we weren’t close friends, we did talk in the cafeteria once in a while.

Joe worked in the tourist hotel industry in Guam, and they had a lot of Japanese clients. Learning to speak Japanese would improve his pay.

That’s why he was here.

As far as I was concerned, I don’t know how and why I ended up there; it just seemed to happen.

It wasn’t at all what I had intended.

I think it was due to a couple of wrenches that life threw into my plans.

Or maybe it was a part of my destiny.

In a minute, I’ll tell you what happened and how a motorcycle accident (or incident?) changed my life.

But first, I have to deal with trying to explain to Gan that I didn’t teach anymore.

Ah, sorry, no teach English now, too busy, no time; finished.

When I was in high school at the American School in Japan (ASIJ), I used to make quite a decent amount of money teaching English to Japanese business executives.

It paid for my extracurricular activities (gas money for my bike, cigarettes, and beer).

However, I stopped teaching when language school began; I didn’t have the time anymore.

The program I was on used the full immersion method, and the workload was intensive; nine to six every day, six days a week.

I had to learn enough of the language to take and pass the university entrance exams as any Japanese student would.

I had already learned basic conversation and reading/writing after four months there.

The Japanese language has three alphabets, Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.

Kanji is the most difficult; you have to learn something like 1,500 characters to read a newspaper.

I had a while to go yet.

No, no, not today teach English. You see her today, talk; maybe tomorrow teach.

I wasn’t getting through to her. I tried to tell her in Japanese, but since she was still a new student, she didn’t understand that either.

My friend, she speak Japanese little, come; you see her; you talk.

It was a losing battle, but I thought it wouldn’t have been polite to brush her off; especially if she didn’t understand.

So, I decided I would go over and explain to her friend directly.

Maybe she spoke enough Japanese to understand me.

There. She pointed to a girl sitting alone at one of the tables.

From the instant I saw her I understood what the French mean when they say ‘coup de foudre.’

The lightning bolt, as they call it.

If you’ve felt it, then you know what I mean, and if you haven’t, pages couldn’t describe the feeling.

One look and I was totally and helplessly in love; as much as any 19-year-old can be.

I’m sure it wasn’t my hormones acting up; I already had a girlfriend, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

I couldn’t stop staring at her.

It was as if she were surrounded by a rainbow-colored aura, leaving everything else in the dark.

Although there were other people around her, her brightness blocked them from my vision.

I can’t really describe the feeling, but somehow, I knew that I was destined to be married to her.

I felt it inside.

It would be the stuff of romance books and songs if the lightning bolt hit both persons at the same time.

However, that’s not always the case.

But I was so knocked out; I never gave that a second thought at the time.

I guess I assumed she felt the same way.

All I could think about was how strange life can be; had it not been for both the motorcycle incident and the scholarship, I wouldn’t be standing here.

I’d have been on the opposite side of the planet; in the USA.

But there I was.

It was as if I was supposed to be there, in that place at that time, as if it was my destiny.

But to understand why I said that, you have to know how I got there.

From the time I began my last year of high school, I kept pestering my father to buy me a motorcycle.

He was very reluctant to do so because he was worried about all the traffic in Tokyo.

I’d already had a motorcycle when we lived in Morocco, but there was far less traffic on the roads there.

I had gotten tired of the daily train ride to school in Chofu from our home in Tamachi, a district in Tokyo. It took about an hour and a half one way, and I needed to change trains twice.

The worst part was walking home after a long day at school and then football or wrestling practice.

I had to walk up the long steep hill up from Tamachi train station to my house.

I would do anything to avoid walking up that hill.

There was a bus, but it didn’t stop until way past my house; the walk back was flat but much longer.

I could have asked him for a car, but a bike was much cooler.

Although the movie Easy Rider with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper had been out for four years, there was a bad boy mystique around bikes that hasn’t worn off until today.

In any case, there were a few girl groupies who hung around the bikers and went with anyone who was willing to take care of them and bring them along to all the parties.

My Dad finally caved in and got me the bike, but only after he made me promise that I would stop smoking.

Not long afterward, I hooked up with one of those groupies, a girl named Yumiko.

Since I was earning good money from the language lessons, she was happy to become my old lady.

It was pretty convenient for her too.

Her best friend Keiko happened to be with my best friend, Bram; who also rode a bike.

But, that didn’t mean she was my girlfriend or that there was any long-term commitment.

It was great, the best of both worlds; all the sex I wanted, without any relationship hang-ups.

That was the theory anyway.

With time, I learned that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to have a physical relationship with someone without having feelings eventually come into the picture.

But 19-year-old males aren’t known for always thinking with their hearts or even their minds.

Yumiko had a great body, and I was satisfied.

That’s why I knew it wasn’t teenage hormones when I met Fei.

It was my last year in high school at ASIJ, and the class of ‘73 was in the process of planning out the final prom to be held at the end of the school year.

We had to choose the location, the band, and the decorations and also organize the food and drinks.

A meeting was called for 6 PM at the school to discuss all of that.

Since it was a Friday, after the meeting there was a party at someone’s house, and I wanted to go. After school, I drove home to change and was going to pick up Yumiko on the way. Although she wasn’t a student there, I decided to take her along to the meeting before heading over to the party.

Along the way, I stopped to buy a pack of cigarettes.

Yes, I had started smoking again, despite my promise.

I had stopped for a few weeks, but almost everyone smoked at the time, and it was tough not to be influenced by that.

Besides, I was still new to the group, and I had to act like one of them so they would accept me.

After I bought the cigarettes, I hopped on the bike and was ready to go to Yumiko’s apartment to pick her up.

I strapped my helmet on, kick-started the engine, and was about to leave when I changed my mind and decided to have a quick smoke.

I don’t know why I did that.

I was ready to drive off, but the thought suddenly appeared in my head.

I think it may have been because I hadn’t had a smoke all day and suddenly felt the need for nicotine.

I took my helmet off, shut down the engine, and lit up a cigarette.

I sat there smoking for a couple of minutes, and when I was done, I took off to her place.

I never made it there.

If I hadn’t taken time to have that cigarette, I wouldn’t have been at the exact place and time that car slid across its lane and knocked me into the fence.

Instead, I went flying into that fence, left knee first, and it sliced off a section of my kneecap, leaving a gaping hole about the size of a telephone dial.

Not everyone remembers phones with dials; I suppose it’s a sign of how old you are if you do!

I took off my helmet, grabbed the fence, and pulled myself out from under the bike.

I took out my drivers’ license, and calmly lit another cigarette waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

I knew that one would come soon because at least 15 people were standing around all staring at the wound.

The car was long gone.

A Good Samaritan came over and shouted at me to give him my belt.

He tied it around my thigh to stop the bleeding.

Meanwhile, I was thinking only about the pain and how I was going to tell my parents.

Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but what happened that day pushed my life in a certain direction.

Earlier I used the word accident and then I put the word incident within parenthesis and with a question mark beside it.

I’m not so sure I believe that there is such a thing as an accident.

I think it depends on your perspective.

If two cars hit each other, it’s an accident to the drivers involved.

But, that’s usually due to their limited perspective.

If they could see what was coming from far enough away, they could adjust to avoid a collision.

Now, let’s assume that two cars are approaching the same corner of the same building, one from the left and one from the right.

Let’s also assume that there aren’t any stop signs or streetlights, and they can’t see the other car because the building is blocking their view.

If someone were standing on the roof of that building, on top of that corner, she could calculate the trajectory and the speed of each car.

She could then determine well beforehand whether they were going to collide or not.

That is unless they adjusted their speed or trajectory for some reason.

If she were of a mind to call one of the cars and tell