What is the meaning of life?

In the first part of the interview, Mayple talks about women empowerment and leading an authentic and transparent life. In the second part, we discuss faith, obedience, gratitude, and embracing suffering.

I have known Mayple Dorrington since I started my career at Scotia Bank. Mayple was Director, Communications and Change Management at Scotia Bank.  Mayple recently wrote a book called Finding: the Oasis in my Soul. It is a journal, an encouraging journey through the spectrum of real-life experiences of trials and triumphs. As you read her book you can relate to it. You will see a reflection of your own experiences. The book asks some relevant questions about having an empty void within us, do we have doubts about our gifts, weaknesses,  our purpose, and identity.

I am a big fan of gratitude and this book challenges my thinking to transform my mind and to get a deeper conviction of love and purpose in my life. If you are struggling with insecurity, fear, uncertainty, or anxiety, get the book, become empowered, lead an authentic life and transform yourself for what you are intended to be.

I want you to explain a little bit more about faith, obedience, gratitude, love, peace, and hope that you talk about in the book?

Jerry, these powerful words are core to the Christian life. While each conveys specific meaning, for me they are all integral and interconnected in my Christian eco-system. God first loves me, knowing this and responding from a place of gratitude, my love flows by showing my obedience to his word and commands. It is walking with God as the object of my faith that I develop hope and experience His peace. In other words, the centrality of all these qualities emanates from the Spirit of God, expressed through His amazing love for me and all His people.

To illustrate my point, I shared a detailed account in my book of a time in my career when I wanted and was denied a specific job position. I was miserable and resentful in the beginning, but once I surrendered and embraced God’s alternate direction, I honed the expertise, experienced the passion and the success He planned for me. It was years after that it became clear to me that had I gone in my preferred direction, it would have led to my occupational demise. These types of events occurred multiple times throughout my life’s journey. When I choose my way, it may or may not be the best outcome, but why would I live in that space of uncertainty knowing that, when I sincerely commit the direction to God and led by His spirit, I always win.  Hope keeps me vibrant, expectant and alive, with the joy set before me of God’s unpredictable outcomes. Obedience is important.

Give my audience some advice on how to draw power and strength from God’s amazing love?  

Jerry this can be deemed the simple Nike slogan, “just do it” type of advice, but it is very difficult to put in practice. There is no set template, but this works for me and based on feedback, has helped countless people who I mentored over the years.

When we can look outward for inspiration and at the same time balance this holistic inflow with tapping into our inner core, what really makes us feel alive, our passion, which is our spiritual gifts, only then can we employ the right tactics to create visions, set boundaries, fashion guardrails, make everyday decisions to embrace opportunities and navigate landmines when they present themselves. It’s called our Personal navigation road map.  This map allows me to see from a holistic vantage point endless possibilities more clearly. It helps me tailor my approach when to speed up, slow down, detour, or abort direction. This approach sends out positive and measured vibes in the universe that usually return to guide me. What we sow we reap, what goes around comes around, Karma happens!

Once the roadmap or playbook is established, commit this to ongoing prayers.  It’s about staying focused but remaining flexible because we must know where we are heading to be able to make appropriate detours, otherwise, we are reactive drifters.  As a consummate planner, it would appear that planning and living in the moment is a paradox! However, it’s only when we plan that we can effectively live in the present.  Change is too rapid to remain in a state of indecisiveness, so we must be ready and poised to pivot on our feet, because managing change in a responsible manner, is not only a skill but is now a survival tactic. My natural tendency as a lifetime banker is to be structured, relying mostly on proven, evidence-based outcomes. These naturally lead me to rely on trends, patterns, formulae, traditions and so forth. Over time, with spiritual clarity, I realized these pieces of evidence are very useful, but at times can get twisted, even present artificial barriers and create limitations, particularly in a rapidly evolving world of constant change.  I now take risks, learn from mistakes, bounce back quickly, keep growing and moving forward. Agility matters!

Being confident that God’s plan is to prosper and not to harm us, we can depend on God’s direction along the journey without fear or condemnation. Guided with the right cocktail of confidence, humility, and courage, our hope should be rooted in God’s strength despite the outcome of our plans.  Sometimes the results will be as planned, other times denied or delayed, but we must learn the discipline to rely on God’s spiritual compass and stay the course.  For me, it’s comforting talking with God as a friend, communing daily, intermittently and feeling his loving responses in my everyday activities. Seeing how He directs my path, often evident in hindsight, has always left me in awesome wonder. It is because of God’s unconditional love that I have victory in executing a plan in alignment with His will.  For this to happen I must place trust into our relationship characterized by obedience and dependence, via consistent prayers in praise, thanksgiving, confession, wrestling for responses to unexplainable questions, events, and requests, but always doing so with reverence and in awe.

As I get older I realize decisions, dealing with issues, being intentional, accepting suffering and forgiving are part of a holistic approach to life. Please comment? 

Jerry, I often ask myself and others, If each of us were to do a Character DNA test, what would the profile be?  Would our great traits include resilience, perseverance, empathy, tolerance, courage, and compassion? If so, we have the characteristics of someone who has weathered hardships.  You see, to stretch our faith muscles, we need trials because suffering often produces the discipline to troubleshoot, to handle stressful situations, being thankful rather than bitter, as we turn trials into victories.  This constitutes a class of people who are intentional in taking ownership of their lives. We look at the big picture, rely on routines when necessary, but receptive to alternatives, have positive self-talk, self-compassion and make forgiveness a decision.  We bear with each other with the realization that our actions are not about being right, but about being righteous and life’s journey is not about perfection, but about progress.

Yes, often with age comes growth, maturity and prayerfully wisdom, but in today’s environment, even the youths must learn at an early age to strive towards living purposeful and fulfilling lives.  With technology, our global space is shrinking and everything is more about immediacy as we are constantly feeling the increasing pressure to keep pace with worldly standards, demands and expectations. Despite this tsunami of options, we must make our own choices, knowing life is not a one size fits all. What I believe is common to all of us is that, to navigate and survive this diverse and interconnected world, is to customize our vision board, remain centered, be self-aware, reserve judgment. We must learn to extend love to all, living in harmony with people and the environment, while entrusting our lives to God’s perfect plan.