Purpose

1. So I’ve been thinking lately, again, about purpose; about having direction, motivation, about wanting to make a difference in the world. The thought came to me just a moment ago that it was easier to believe that I was making a difference when my world was smaller. Or when I thought I was bigger, when I thought some destiny might take me to a level of world-influence. But now I’m ten years older and the world is so much larger. It’s not that I couldn’t still have some effect on the world or make my mark somehow, particularly in this era of the instant celebrity, but I’m not sure that I want to anymore.

I was asked a question the other day:

If you could accomplish only one thing during the rest of your life, what would it be?

If I could accomplish only one thing throughout the remainder of my life, I would hope to be a good person. Now this isn’t some wishy-washy vague answer for me; I’ve got some definite ideas about what it means to be a good person. I would hope to embody those ideas. If I could accomplish only one more thing before my life is done, I would hope to get these ideas down on paper, expressed in some concrete way. I’m not even sure that I would want to publish it. It’s more about the process of understanding something well enough that I could explain it to other people effectively.

I hadn’t really thought about it in a while and I felt that I rushed my answer a bit. But still, it made me think about it again. I used to have all these images of myself working out all these system ideas and packaging them in accessible ways, spreading the word around the world. I really did want to be Paul, to have that kind of purpose and destiny. And there are times when I think that the world is still primed for the next big idea, but I don’t have the ego anymore for it. Even if I truly thought my way was better, I still can’t imagine trying to force it on to someone else or let anyone else do the same.

So I semi-resign myself to being just an individual with no world-influence aspirations. I do still hope to better understand the world and how it works, and I do still hope to help others understand it too. But I’m far less convinced that it will fall to me to make it a religion.

2. Since last October I feel like I’ve been growing up a lot, that I’ve really entered the transition into full adulthood. There was the new job, the high school reunion, things ending with April, the growing friendship with my parents, starting to seriously think about buying a house. Now I’m starting to look at my relationships and the kind of person I am and want to be, the kind of person that I want to be with. I’ve become much more focused on these things than the first part of this post.