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The Path to Purpose
Ken Wallace
When you pick up a stick by one end you’re simultaneously picking up the opposite end. In life, we seem to think we need to pick a point along a spectrum to the exclusion of all other possible points. We position ourselves toward the right or left or middle. The position we occupy then becomes defined in terms of its proximity to or distance from other points. We wind up focusing on our differences rather than our similarities.
This is an “Either-Or” approach to defining the meaning and significance of life. Implied in this approach is that there can be only a single way in which the whole truth is apprehended, understood and applied throughout the course of one’s life. Accordingly, our primary task in life becomes to discover that single way so that we may acquire whatever reward we feel we’re after in this life or the next.
Let me be quick to say that there is nothing wrong with having a position and sticking with it for convincing experiential or even non-empirical reasons. The problem arises when your position becomes the definitive point of view that you must defend against all other points of view in order to feel secure, worthwhile and meaningful as a human being.
When this happens, you see only what you’re capable of seeing as the only valid position from which everything else needs to be viewed. You thereby limit your access to the myriad of possibilities and opportunities that are inherent in thoughtfully inspecting other points of view before actively differentiating yourself from them. You are, in essence, crafting a cage that holds captive your creativity to become anything other than you are currently.
The Benefit of Narrowing Down
Narrowing down is not the same as self-confinement. Life can be experienced as a mighty river, contained within clearly defined banks that channel its energy toward a specific destination. Many can attest to the fact that it can also be experienced as a flood, the same water of the river exceeding its boundaries and gushing in all directions thereby dissipating its energy into destructive results.
Channeled energy within narrow boundaries might be considered to be a form of prison, as it doesn’t allow for “free expression” in any direction other than that in which it is contained. However, the alternative allows for absolutely no achievement because there is no focus, no clearly defined end toward which its energy is directed.
What we are talking about is purpose in life. There is power in purpose and passion in its pursuit. Without it, life wastes away into wistful whimsy or woeful wantonness.
Purpose is a constantly flowing river of experience moving within defined boundaries toward its intrinsic destiny. But it’s not something that’s found or fostered exclusively within a narrow range of ideas and experiences. Purpose is not content to be confined to the content of a single point along the spectrum of human reality. The discovery and development of purpose in life is not to be found in the river, rather in the choices one makes regarding its banks. Narrowing down is crucial to channeling the power of purpose. Boundaries must be set in order for purpose to emerge. Otherwise it will be submerged beneath the torrent of destruction that ensues from the “free flow” of one’s native energy.
Setting personal boundaries of thought and behavior is an unfettered choice that, rather than constricting freedom, actually expands it. Ironically, the more you concentrate your energy within self-chosen “banks” the more freedom you have to be creative, innovative and to think and perform “outside the banks.”
The Dialectic of Decision
It is reasonable to believe that the answers to life’s deep and abiding questions are to be found in considering both ends of the spectrum of thought and experience. This “Both-And” approach is not just between the two opposite extremes; it is inclusive of all points along the spectrum. You grow strong as a person when you know why you occupy the position you’ve chosen as it relates to all other possible positions you could have taken.
When making decisions, especially regarding the boundaries within which you will channel your life’s energy, it is important to consider as many positions as you are aware of. Once made, it is also important to realize that the decision regarding boundaries is never final. It is like a gauge that must be monitored periodically to determine if corrective action needs to be taken. If the gauge indicates that energy flow is waning or that the direction of the river is not taking you where you want to go, then it’s time to reset the banks and redirect the flow of your life toward more productive and satisfying ends.
Who’s Making Your Decision?
Initially, the choice to set your boundaries is made for you. Children don’t have the capacity to make this decision and so responsible adults must do it for them. However, it’s imperative that they learn the necessity of making it for themselves whenever they are able.
There are many adults in the world who have never truly made the decision regarding personal inner boundaries for themselves. They have merely mindlessly perpetuated the choice that was made for them when they were children. They merely go with the flow of their life’s energy that was shaped and constricted many years before by the choices of those with responsibility for them. Since they never make the choice for themselves, they cannot live their lives on their own terms but merely as a faint and faded reflection of someone else’s idea of what they should have been.
The Path to Purpose
Deciding what you want in life is the first step. The second is setting the boundaries within which you will direct your efforts to obtain what you want. You must decide how you will make decisions regarding how you will live your life. What are your rules for making decisions? Will you consciously consider all possible points of view in your deliberation before coming to a conclusion or will you decide based only on what you’ve always believed and how you’ve always behaved? To be sure, there is strength in the latter but little opportunity for growth.
The final step in the path to purpose is to live in such a way that helps others make their own considered decisions about their own boundaries and goals. Purpose in one’s life serves to provide purpose in the lives of others. In this way, we can be joined together regardless of what individual positions we occupy along the spectrum of life.
The path to purpose is the path to human integration, if not actual unification. We are all so much more alike than different. An integral aspect of the purpose of anyone’s life should be the realization of this fact.
We can be taught only what we’re willing to learn. Part of the boundary setting process and, therefore, the discovery of your life’s purpose, is to decide who you are willing to learn from and how far from your base of knowledge and experience you are willing to venture.
The banks of the Mississippi river, they say, stretch to more than a mile apart at some points along its vast presence in America’s heartland. At its origins in Itasca, Minnesota, a child can step across this mighty river in a single step. At its beginning, the river’s banks are narrow and ill-defined. Such is true with us at the beginning of our lives. Moving with purpose down to New Orleans, Louisiana, the Mississippi gains strength, power and greatness as its banks expand.
Your purpose in life expands when you choose to learn from what appears to be strange or insignificant. Purpose swells when you integrate what you’ve learned within the flow of your energy such that your boundaries also expand.
By clearly identifying your boundaries and narrowing down to specific ways of thinking, choosing and acting, you are actually setting the stage for personal growth in ways you could never accomplish otherwise. Out of the tiny acorn arises the massive oak.
