A Definition of “Purpose”

What is Purpose?   Rabbi Jonathan Sachs puts it this way : Purpose is where our uniqueness (talents, point of view, experience, all that makes us uniquely “Me”) meets/intersects/responds to something that is needed in the world.

This is the premise I work off. That each of us is unique for a reason. And if we are not exercising that uniqueness there is a part of the world that isn’t being realized. In the same way that we have in our body many different organs and tissues, and if one isn’t being it’s full self – if the lungs suddenly decided they wanted to be legs, for example – the body wouldn’t work properly. In the same way, we have been put in a world of incredible diversity. Plants, animals, birds, fish. Deserts, mountains, beaches, plains. People who love music, people who love politics, people who love sports. This diversity is necessary.

In the natural world, no one questions their own uniqueness – lions don’t try to copy zebras; birds don’t try to be whales. Instead they exude their uniqueness, they sing their uniqueness, they express their uniqueness in every way possible. Humans, however, have issues around this subject. Often it is a question of having forgotten what makes us unique – which we naturally know as children – and then feeling blocked to rediscover and express our uniqueness because of a host of “outside” problems : parents told us this, society tells us that. Limitations we take on ourselves.

So this fall I am launching a new imagery class, “What Should I Be Doing With My Life”, to peel back the “shoulds” and the “can’ts” to return to the original blueprint. And, then, to propel forward past the blocks to fleshing out and vibrantly living that blueprint.

Not only is this life changing for us as individuals, it is what the Great Body of the World needs to function properly.