What is the nature of your life's mission?

Not the targets that you have set for yourself, nor the goals that others have convinced you to pursue. Those are merely missions-in-life.

I exist for a purpose and so do you. Our purpose makes the earthly visit and its travails worthwhile.

So, I ask: What objectives were set by He Who dispatches souls from the peaks of heaven to tangle with corporeal reality?

Well, G‑d knows, but He ain't telling. Not all of it, at least.

Each of us operates as covert agents in G‑d's master planWith bodies or otherwise, all souls were charged at the sinaitic revelation with implementing G‑d's laws. That involves welcoming the myriad laws of the Torah into our daily existence and mentally excavating the Torah's colorful strata of insight.

Delightfully, this part of our purpose on Earth has been expressed with clarity. With such readily available mission-related material at our fingertips, it would be unfair to ourselves to delay the inevitable. For the mystics explain that we re-incarnate repeatedly in order to achieve the maximum in this overall mission.

However, there are also personalized missions unique to each soul's destiny and character.

Each of us operates as covert agents in G‑d's master plan. Seemingly insignificant activities wield such dramatically profound cumulative effect on all existence that even we – G‑d's agents – must prowl the Earth uniformed of details or ramifications.

How, then, are we to know what to accomplish?

G‑d arranges circumstances so that we arrive face to face with the scenarios in which we must achieve. He also supplies the tools necessary to succeed in our pre-ordained interactions.

Nevertheless, being unaware of the precise expectations, we remain with no option but to approach any given situation as best and as positively as possible, acting as we know (from the Torah) or assume (from common sense and decency) G‑d wishes.

The unexpected occurs. Your car packs in. Your flight is rerouted, landing at a distant airport or foreign country. You are forced to relocate for the sake of career. You feel compelled to embark on a touring marathon. A chance encounter. A sudden jolt of your memory. Clearly, He is guiding, shoving, luring you to a situation or location that acts as an essential cog in your destiny and mission.

Unforeseen and unavoidable are clearly ordained. Mortal planning fails often in order to allow G‑d's plan to transpire through your subsequent reactions. For that reason, those mindful of their mission view unexpected surroundings with expectant eyes. Who has providence willed me to meet? Why has G‑d sent me to this location, placed me in this situation, lured me into this relationship, consigned me to a position of influence or dependency?

Numerous tales involve the saintly purposely journeying to seemingly random spots to recite a blessing, study some Torah, perform an act of kindness. Those with eyes in the heavens are aware of their purpose on Earth. They sense the time, location and individual that requires their input. The rest of us would do well to at least welcome the unheralded aware of its potential.

Contemplate: Must only the exotic be relevant to your mission? Unanticipated aside, an even more clandestine sector of our corporeal sojourn exists. Far from being shrouded by impenetrable disguise, its camouflage is a result of its extreme proximity. Familiarity throws many an agent off track.

Contemplate: Must only the exotic be relevant to your mission? Are your immediate surroundings, relationships and experience any less essential?

Indeed, more often than not sublimity lurks in the most mundane apparel.

Take time to review your ordinary, immediate scene. Reconsider with an open heart your dull, commonplace, and seemingly unremarkable interactions that embrace the majority of mortal existence – perhaps for a very good reason.

What you consider monotony, a burden, an obligation, may truly be your soul's pot of gold. Essential to your fulfillment, it landed in your lap with or without your consent, begging you to view it as a partner in your destiny rather than an artifact of earthly living.

Who in fact are those souls shaping, intersecting and interacting with our lives?

Perhaps your soul departed its celestial womb with the goal of being a caring and loving parent or sibling?

Ultimately, your view and treatment of the "him," "her," "them," or "it" in your life could have the profoundest influence not only on the cosmic scheme, but also on your own soul's fulfillment.

Is there a soul-diamond so very close to your daily vision that you are blinded to its brilliance? Are you subconsciously mistaking its familiar glow for a mere satellite of your own sun? For lack of consideration, you could be sabotaging your own destiny.

Perhaps, just perhaps, essential to your divine mission in your present incarnation is to be the best partner you can possibly be to your very own spouse.

Eternal triumph lies in but a moment's contemplation.