In Search of Mark's Life Purpose
Photo credit: MumbleyJoe
In Search of Mark’s Life Purpose
I’ve done similar exercises before like setting SMART goals, creating life mission and vision – but none of them took up a whole month to complete. I’ve never been this serious, taking time to go through the exercises. It was a rewarding experience – I’ve learned a lot about … myself!
Now is a great time to revisit my notes. I find some of my answers rather interesting. For example, question 4 from “Let’s get started!” reads, “What do you dream about? What do you daydream about?”. I don’t day dream a lot but I wrote this down:
“I dream about being in interesting places, being able to acquire vast amount of knowledge and learning new things.
I daydream about being able to time travel and to relive the experiences of different time periods.”
The second part might be a little difficult. I don’t think I can find a time machine 😛 – but it does show that I love to travel, experience different things, learning, and discover new things. I think of myself like a Maven (hopefully) as described in Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point.
One thing that surprises me is that money is not one of the things that are important to me! The most important things to me are to be happy, to enjoy good relationships, to be able to contribute and to learn anything I want. Right now, for some reason, I want to be able to play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata 3rd Movement which requires a lot of time to learn (I’m not up to that level yet). That means I need to create more time for myself and others which in turn requires a lot more money.
I’ve read somewhere (probably from the Cashflow 101 board game) that “Money is not the most important thing in life, but it does seem to affect everything that is important”.
The Rear Deck Speech
It is hard to imagine myself being a bearded old man talking to young kids. How can we compete for attention these days with so many distractions? I did describe the setting where it is comfortable and informal. There are not a whole lot going on which gives me a chance to say something.
I don’t have the entire speech word for word but I did lay out the contents. It is definitely going to be about my life experiences. I did write about overcoming setbacks in my early years and how persistence and optimism helped me overcame it. I did tell these young kids about not being afraid to make mistakes as there is always something to learn from them. The best is to make them while we are young. Always view challenges as opportunities. There are some blank areas which will be eventually filled with experiences in this grand experiment.
My Life’s Purpose
The cumulative exercises from the beginning till “A little Self-Myth Busting” help formed my life’s purpose:
“To be a good steward of the resources I have, enjoy good relationships with family and friends, and enjoy life!”
It is simple! I know I’m not going to live forever and the resources that I have will be passed on when the time comes. However, I do want to make sure that the resources are put into good use – helping someone get a good education, benefiting family and friends but not spoiling them.
Travel did not turn up in my life’s purpose explicitly but my family and friends are around the globe. To maintain good relationships, I think I will need to travel a lot 🙂
It is so important to enjoy life – it has a lot to give!
Mark is traveling again. Where?
@ Mark – I would hesitate to make any comments that might cause you to rethink your Purpose – hence your Number … as I recall, of all the Final 15 your compound growth rate was the lowest.
Lee’s was second lowest, but he’s just shaved 5 years off his time frame, so he’s now up in the stratosphere with the rest. Is this a good thing? It is what it is …