Have you ever met up with a friend who tells you about a big new dream? They have a brilliant business idea, they’re moving to Hawaii, or they’re taking up scuba diving. As a good friend, you’re excited! It sounds amazing.

But the next time you see them, the business was too much work, Hawaii is too hot, and scuba diving is too expensive. Besides, it’s all about buying a pub now!

It doesn’t take long to spot the pattern.

If “follow your passion” means following whatever you’re curious about at this exact second, then it is terrible advice. But if it’s such bad advice, why do we keep giving it?

The Passion Problem

The truth is that just because you have found your passion doesn’t mean you know how to help others find theirs. To the person who has found “it,” the advice is excellent. To the person still searching, it is infuriating—even damaging.

The person searching for their passion is usually longing for a sense of meaning that their current life isn’t providing. When you are stuck, it’s often precisely because you have lost touch with where your passions really lie.

Telling a stuck person to “follow their passion” is like a doctor telling a sick patient: “Ah, I see the problem. You are ill and you need to get better. Take care!” It is a diagnosis, not a solution. It just tells the seeker they are doing something wrong and suggests they run harder on the same treadmill.

The Latin Secret

This version of “passion” teaches us that it should be easy. It suggests that the moment we hit a wall, it must not have been our passion after all.

But there is another kind of passion. There is the “passion of the Christ.”

Our word passion comes from the Latin passio. It means suffering. Yeah, really. Just suffering.

Not so sexy anymore, right? But hear me out. This is where the idea of passion originated. Over time, the meaning shifted from being specifically about the crucifixion of Jesus to intense desire and emotion. The symbolic link was the depth of love that drove Jesus to endure such horrific suffering.

There is a version of “follow your passion” that actually means: Follow what you are willing to suffer for.

This is a much better starting point for finding your calling. We are only willing to suffer for things we value deeply. These things aren’t mere curiosities that fade on a rainy day. These passions stick around when things get tough.

• It’s the artist who sculpts into the late hours without noticing the time.

• It’s the underpaid teacher who goes above and beyond to help a struggling pupil.

• It’s the Olympic gymnast who trades every lie-in for a marginal gain in strength.

• It’s the writer who bleeds over a single sentence to communicate something special.

Pick Your Poison

All ambitions hit hurdles eventually. When you hit that first wall and the work becomes grueling, you face a decision:

Is this a sign that it’s not my passion, or is this a chance to prove that it is?

President Theodore Roosevelt once said: “Far and away the greatest prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”

Author Mark Manson puts it more bluntly: “Pick your poison.” It’s an acknowledgment that all choices come with taxes and tradeoffs, and so we may as well choose struggles that we relish or find meaningful. We shouldn’t ask, “What do I want to enjoy?” but rather, “What pain do I want to sustain?”

Finding something you’re willing to suffer for isn’t a silver bullet, but it is a reliable compass. Where will it lead you? What is truly worth doing to you? What is your favorite suffering?

Godspeed,

TMo

KINDLING QUESTION

—John Vervaeke

Hi Friends,

My friend is a poet. He has this excellent line which seems to have captured people’s imaginations:

It’s a prayer. It’s a reminder.

When washing the dishes: “This is the main event.”

When changing nappies: “This is the main event.”

It’s a mantra that he carries forth into the terror and boredom of the ordinary to illuminate it with presence and purpose.

A talisman to ward off the demon of distraction. To crush the haunting lie that somehow, something, somewhere else is really where it’s at.

For me, it’s a reminder that there is no purpose outside the present.

This is the main event.

When I heard this, it reminded me of a poem that I wrote during the first year of my son’s life.

This was my way of responding to the scary experience that life was passing me by too quickly. It was passing me by because yes, I wanted to be fully present, and fully soak in every moment with my family—to remember and honour every moment fully—but because it felt like time was getting thin. “I have things I want to DO.” Things that aren’t able to fit in right now. Too many good things, too little time.

So I wanted to share this poem with you in the hopes that it can help you find some resolve and resolution for yourself.

Godspeed,

TMo

I will call it holy.

My son,
though you are not yet one,
and becoming your father
is actually easier than imagined
what I had guessed all along, I now know for certain:
that I will fail you.

Though you are not yet one
you are already almost my one year old son!
And what do I have to show for it, now that so much is already gone?!
To me it’s like
time is a train I missed
or a hand I have to relinquish.

Though this heart is blooming with room for you
though, if I could, 
                 I would collect up each little bit, under my wings like a hen with its chicks, ready for a future where we grab a sofa and reminisce
but instead, it rushes past 
like flickering frames from the window of a train.
I cannot honour it, it’s all just too quick.
Sliding like sand between my digits.

And what irony that this timekeeper around my wrist is your greatest interest.
Each day we keep living these gorgeous pictures I cannot keep.
There is no camera to save each self we share together
and no chest that can keep each worthy memory. 
It’s lost like castles on the beach.

So, my boy, I’m sorry.
I’ll take pictures, write poetry, and tell all our stories
but most of all, I promise to just
drink in the glory.

I will curse no time to be ‘over’ or ‘quicker’.
There will be no time that is wished into history and no moment that is skipped.
Even when it is your half-done bum marching away at changing time
your babbling over the television
your pattering hands following me to the shower
your constant climbing up my limbs
your scratching at your head in stress,
and when the skin on your chin is flaring up again
when you’ve got your hands in my cereal again
or you’re fighting off sleep again
sucking on my suede jacket again
need to fall asleep on me again
need to be carried again.
I will not hurry.
I will call it now.
I will call it a memory.
I will call it holy.
I will call it holy.

Well, you might have noticed that I’ve been away for quite some time. It’s been more than a year in fact! I can hardly believe it.

And it’s been 12+ months of stretching and stressing and struggle and striving, all just to keep the chaos at bay.

My mum was diagnosed with a devastating early onset dementia. My mother-in-law has a form of blood cancer, making her very vulnerable. I’ve had weeks of working until 11 at night, as well as huge let-downs at work with a colleague walking out days before a business critical deadline. We’ve had visits to the NICU, heart surgeries and other tragedies that are too raw to share with you. In this midst of this, there’s been relational conflict left, right and center. There’s money stresses, church stresses, society stresses, car trouble, drain trouble, trouble with rogue traders, trouble with migraines, trouble with back pains, trouble with technology… and on and on and on. All while I’m still adjusting to life as a Dad to a boisterous, lovable just-turned-two year old.

It’s been a lot.

Now that I feel I have adjusted to a somewhat new normal, even while many of these problems persist, I’ve had some time to reflect.

The question that has been in the air is how can I best pursue a purposeful life right inside of these kinds of messy times? Where is purpose when we’re in a storm and we’re just trying to keep the boat afloat let alone navigate?

Well, in order to answer this question, I need to tell you a bit about the art of war.

In military philosophy, there is a distinction made between two types of thinking.

The first is a tactical mindset. When you’re in the thick of war, it’s all about reacting. You’re focusing on choosing the best and quickest response to the immediate problems you’re faced with. You’re just trying to survive the battle, and respond to issues that show up.

The second is a strategic mindset. This is about planning actions which will achieve your overall goal. Not just surviving the current battle, but winning the whole war. You’re not reacting, you’re directing, planning, scheming. Taking a step back, looking at the bigger picture and assessing how you’re going to get there. It’s about vision.

The tactical mindset is the purview of the underdog. The smaller, less powerful opponent will tend to adopt tactics which make the most of their smaller size. Accepting that they cannot afford to strategise in the same way as the stronger, more powerful opponent. But they can instead embrace their more agile size and exploit opportunities swiftly, developing spontaneity and creativity.

The strategic mindset tends to be a luxury. It’s the way of the ones who have all the power, and time and distance.

You can see where I’m going with this.

There are strategic seasons. Times where we can afford to sit back and plan and envision the future. We can look ahead down the path we are going, we can listen and wait for divine revelation, and plan further down the road how to get there. We can consult experts and create vision boards and test out options.

And then there are tactical seasons. Seasons in the rapids of life, where we are mainly avoiding obstacles, putting out fires. Just trying to be present. There’s no time for reflection or big-picture thinking. You’re just happy if you can get to the end of the day without poo on the walls, or a visit to the hospital, or worse — the cemetary.

There are strategic seasons.

And there are tactical seasons.

And even though tactical seasons are born from limitation, even they can offer us gifts.

It’s true.

What can this tactical season offer me?

For me, even just to get curious enough to ask this question, unlocked something in me.

If you are in a tactical season, firstly, I see you, and secondly, congrats on getting this far reading this. Consider spending a moment asking yourself this question:

Here are some of my ideas and my pointers for you to guide your thinking.

1. Clarity of Focus

“When you have only one arrow, you aim carefully.” —African Proverb

In tactical circumstances, your field of vision narrows — but that can bring laser-sharp discernment. There’s no bandwidth for fluff or pretense.

• In tactical seasons you have to practice the power of “no”.

• In times of pressure, you can develop an eye for spotting the most ripe opportunities.

2. Creative Improvisation

“My whole life has been one big improvisation.” —Clint Eastwood

Tactical living invites you to improvise, to use what’s at hand. There’s a playfulness that can emerge when the map is gone and you’re in survival mode — what jazz musicians call “playing off the chart.”

• It forces you to loosen up and abandon perfectionism

• You learn to spot opportunities on the fly, especially from things going wrong

3. Formational Pressure

“Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” —Rom. 5:3–4

Strategic seasons often allow for external achievements; while tactical seasons often forge internal substance. There’s a deep soul-forming power in tactical seasons:

• You grow in resilience.

• You develop integrity — doing good when no one sees.

• You learn dependence on God and others.

It’s like roots growing deep in drought — invisible, but foundational.

4. Relational Intimacy

“No man is an island.” —John Donne

When life is stripped back, there's more space to see and feel each other. In tactical living:

• Relationships often grow deeper - bonded through shared endurance.

• Vulnerability becomes necessary, not optional.

• You see the necessity of collaboration and getting out of your own head.

5. Practicing Presence

“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.” —C.S.Lewis

Tactical time is nothing if not focussed on the present. And if you’re a bit of a dreamer like me, we can get stuck in a future-focussed sensibility. The truth is, we do need to strategise and plan and schedule, but purpose is only found in the present; for there is nowhere else that you experience life.

May you curse nothing to be over, quicker, wasted.

May you receive all that God has for you, even in this season.

May you find your gold in the refiner’s fire.

Godspeed,

TMo

p.s. Now that I’m going to try some writing again, I want to hear from you. Do you have questions you want answered?

After a series of unforeseeable disasters completely derailed 2025, I had no choice but to put my writing for Thoughts On Purpose on hold.

But fear not because during that time, my quest to explore all things related to purpose and how to walk in our calling has very much been continuing in the background, and now I’m ready to start writing again. But not quite in the same way I was before.

So what’s the plan?

I plan to start sharing tools, reviews and thinky-poos with you in a more ad-hoc and irregular fashion, as my other responsibilities allow. I hope this will be on a somewhat monthly basis. So, stay tuned for those.

I also plan to explore some different ways of sharing my thoughts with you (video) and let loose the other sides of myself which you may not be familiar with — there’s a poet hidden in these bones, in case you didn’t know.

I also hope to explore more coaching this year, and this could affect the type of content I’m sharing too.

Finally, I just want to remind you what my writing is all about.

I believe that we’re all hungry for purpose, and called to spend our lives on something worthwhile. Without a sense of why we are alive and what we’re living for, life eventually becomes unlivable. But, despite this reality, it’s actually quite hard to find good practical guidance to support us on that journey. So that’s what we’re exploring together.

I look forward to seeing what we find.

Stay tuned friends

Godspeed

Stop scrolling.

This is what you’ve been looking for.

I am here, like an angel of the Lord, to shake you out of your day-walking nightmares.

First, just stop it. Stop cruising tabs, stop swapping videos, pause that other thing. Sit down, and read this.

We’ve been through so much, you and I. Haven’t we?

There was a full-on global pandemic. We wore masks and quarantined.

Remember that? Christmas was cancelled. People died.

But you? You are still here. We are the ones who made it.

The question is, are you among the many walking dead? There are many who made it through COVID only to get infected by a virulent strain of apathy. They are survivors left paralysed and haunted by that vexing, pesky question: “I made it, but what for?”

After making it through something so life-altering as this, it doesn’t feel right for us to go back to normal. We have this renewed drive to make the most of the freedoms that we lost. We wanted to carpe diem the hell out of life once we got out of lockdown. But, how?

And now, as we’ve headed back into the “new normal” without a vision for a more purposeful life, that new normal has simply morphed into a malaise. A checking out. A dissatisfaction with the way things are. But without a vision or a reason, you are stumbling blindly, numbly into the future, just hoping that bad things won’t happen.

Some part of you became numb, just to survive. And it worked for a time, but now you’ve lost touch with something. Some part of you is thinning out and tired. You might even ask “why care? I can get by just fine like this it seems.”

Just let the next episode autoplay. The next day. “I’m resting,” you say. Again. Just a little more resting.

But you know it’s true: you are not made for fine.

You are not made for getting by.

And life will not let you live like this for long.

The everyday, monotonous sufferings of life are always going to cost you something. And the soul wants and needs to spend it on something worthwhile.

Some part of you is aware that you are spending your life, even though you’re too tired to entertain the question whether you’re spending it right.

I get it.

But it’s time.

It’s time to turn these hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.

It’s time you got vaccinated against this apathy by listening to this heart of yours which is calling you to greater things. Each and every pang of longing at the end of the day is a sign that you were made for more. It’s a little signpost to your calling.

I’ll give it to you straight:

Your life is not about you.

We are finite creatures endowed with eternal longings.

You were made to glorify God. Not that God needs anything from us, but that you are a conduit designed to flow with the Life that was there in the beginning.

Do this, and you will start to shine.

But if you deny this essential truth about yourself you will remain forever confused and searching for the solution to your zombie-like insatiability.

You are not a stomach that needs filling, you are a candle that wants to be lit. All of your gifts are meant for service. Indeed, all power is meant for service. All of your toil can be turned to reverence, adoration, communion. Your whole life a theatre of awe.

Many millions are bound for a mediocrity of their own making, their own choosing. Straight down the path set by their basest instincts. Are you one of them?

Subscribe now

I’m speaking from experience now. I want you to know what I’ve found and have kept finding again and again.

Give your whole self to God. Do each thing as an act of worship, an offering of love to the Supreme creator, the one to whom you owe everything anyway, because this is where the joy is. It’s not really about belief, it’s something you have to try.

It’s what you were made for.

The question is, what gifts have you been given?

What little treasures are you hoarding?

The world needs them.

You don’t get to look down on them. That’s selfish.

And don’t make it complicated. Start now with the smallest thing you can think of. What do you have now which you can offer? What kind thought can you speak? What moment can you spare? What healing touch awaits? What insights are you keeping locked away?

Wake up zombie! You have so much to give.

Godspeed,

TMo

For more on where to go next, check out this page of the best tools I’ve found so far, and subscribe to hear about them as soon as I find something worthy of sharing.

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Have you ever gotten nearly all of the way through a book, before realising that you were reading the wrong one?

Well, this happened to me last year. If anything, this must be a good reflection on the first book, but what it meant was that I read two of Ken Robinson’s books about purpose in order to explore his philosophy about what he calls Your Element.

It’s likely you will have heard of Ken Robinson from his hugely popular TED talks, which capture his passion for reforming education and promoting creativity. A lot of this philosophy also comes through the data and anecdotes in The Element.

You see, I thought that I was reading Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life, but I was in fact reading The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. An easy mistake, right? The former is more of an essay explaining the author’s philosophy about purpose, while the latter is a practical guide to finding your Element for yourself.

Now that I’ve been on this long journey though, I’ll skip to the end.

Finding Your Element is pretty good. It’s fun, easy-to-read, practical and is likely to help people who are feeling stuck. But it’s just good, not great, and I have since come across more structured and simple frameworks which have somewhat overshadowed the work in these books. So, rather than give you a book review and an in-depth exploration of his ideas, I thought that I’d collect some of Ken’s greatest one-liners; which show him at his best: witty, entertaining, light-hearted and thoughtful.

So, here’s the best of Finding Your Element by Ken Robinson.

Why is it important to find your Element?

“The most important reason is personal. Finding your Element is vital to understanding who you are and what you’re capable of being and doing with your life. The second reason is social. Very many people lack purpose in their lives. The evidence of this is everywhere: in the sheer numbers of people who are not interested in the work they do; in the growing numbers of students who feel alienated by the education system; and in the rising use everywhere of anti-depressants, alcohol and painkillers. Probably the harshest evidence is how many people commit suicide every year, especially young people.

Whatever your circumstances may be, in many ways finding your Element is, above anything else, about finding meaning and purpose in your life.

Like the rest of nature, human talents and passions are tremendously diverse and they take many forms. As individuals, we’re all motivated by different dreams and we thrive—and we wilt too—in very different circumstances. Recognizing your own dreams and the conditions you need to fulfill them are essential to becoming who you can be. Finding your own Element won’t guarantee that you’ll spend the rest of your life in a constant, unbroken state of pleasure and delight. It will give you a deeper sense of who you really are and of the life you could and maybe should live.”

What does it mean to be in your element?

Passions + Aptitudes

“The element is where natural aptitude meets personal passion.

There is a difference between aptitudes and abilities. Aptitudes are part of your raw potential. To realise that potential, you need to apply and refine them. For example, human beings have a natural aptitude for language. But learning to speak is a cultural process that depends on being exposed to other speakers, especially in infancy.

In ordinary circumstances, everyone has the necessary aptitudes for literacy. But many children and adults can’t read or write. They’re not incapable of reading and writing; they simply haven’t learned how to do it. You don’t become literate just by getting older. Literacy, like speech, is a cultural achievement.”

Discovering your aptitudes

“Is it possible to have more than one Element? Of course it is. You have many aptitudes and your Element may evolve over time as your talents mature and your interests change.

There is another dimension to discovering your aptitudes. You may believe that you don’t have an aptitude for something—math, or music, or design, or whatever it may be—because you originally encountered it in the wrong way, or because you were taught it in school in a way that conflicted with how you really learn. To understand more fully what your aptitudes are, you need to think about your own preferred ways of thinking and about your own learning styles.

You may have all kinds of latent talents that lie undiscovered beneath the surface, like minerals in the ground. Part of finding your Element is being open to the possibility that it might lie in a field you’ve never explored. If you’re casting about for what you should do with your life, limiting your horizons can have dramatic consequences.

To find your Element you may have to challenge your own beliefs about yourself. Whatever age you are, you’ve almost certainly developed an inner story about what you can do and what you can’t do; what you’re good at and what you’re not good at. You may be right, of course. But for all the reasons we’ve discussed, you may be misleading yourself.”

It’s not about a job

“Being in your Element is not only about what you do for a living. Some people can’t make a living from what they love to do and some don’t want to. Like many of those involved in the maker movement, they prefer to pursue their Element as a purely recreational process. If you are considering earning your living from your Element, it’s important to bear in mind that you not only have to love what you do; you should also enjoy the culture and the tribes that go with it.

Your life doesn’t have to play on a single track. You’re not limited to one Element for life. Some people find they love several things equally: others that their passions shift and evolve. Finding your Element for now doesn’t mean that you’re locked into it forever. Your life can be multifaceted, evolutionary, and in a process of constant growth and possibility.”

How to find your Element

“There is no single route to finding your Element. Life is not linear. It is organic.

In planning your way forward, it’s important to remember the three core principles that are at the heart of my argument. First, your life is unique. You can learn from the experiences of other people, but you cannot and should not try to duplicate them. Second, you create your own life and you can re-create it. In doing that, your greatest resources are your own imagination and sense of possibility. Third, your life is organic, not linear. You can’t plan the whole of your life’s journey and you don’t need to. What you do need to plan are the next steps.”

Stop the noise, change perspective and experiment

“Stopping the noise, changing perspective, and giving it a try are three core processes for finding your Element. You could treat them as one-off events if you like and just do them once. But if you’re serious about finding your Element, I suggest that you don’t. It would be like trying to get in good physical shape by working out once and assuming you’ve done all that’s needed. Like getting and staying in shape, these three processes are part of a continuing cycle of focus, exploration and reflection, the aim of which is to deepen your understanding of yourself and the world around you.”

Pay attention to your emotional states

“One of the most important things you can do as you try to find your Element is to pay careful attention to your emotional states. Is there something you do that consistently elevates your spirits? When do you experience stretches of real joy? Remember that one of the primary ways that Brian Schwartz helps his clients sort through their interests is by identifying how good they feel when embarking on them. It is critical to identify this as you try to figure out what you’re meant to do.

There is a myth that being happy means being constantly cheerful. Martin Seligman is known as the Father of Positive Psychology. In 2003, he published Authentic Happiness, which sets out the case for a life of sustained happiness and the principles and practices for achieving it. He identifies three different elements of happiness: positive emotions, engagement and meaning. Positive emotions are what we feel. Engagement is about flow: “being one with the music, time stopping, and the loss of self-consciousness during an absorbing activity.” The third element of happiness is meaning. “The pursuit of engagement and the pursuit of pleasure are often solitary, solipsistic endeavors. Human beings . . . want meaning and purpose in life.” Typically that means “serving something that you believe is bigger than the self.” Feeling you’re doing something meaningful doesn’t guarantee happiness, but it tends to be difficult to find happiness unless you feel that what you’re doing is significant in some way.”

Finding your Tribe

“Part of being in your Element is finding out what world you want to be in—what sort of culture you enjoy and who your “tribes” are.

As with finding your Element, if you’re looking for your tribe, you can’t plan the whole process. That’s the point. Finding your tribe is not a linear process whose outcomes you can predict. It’s an organic one that you can only cultivate and propagate. If you do it well, you may find it produces a harvest of new opportunities that you couldn’t have anticipated.”

Finally, why should you believe in yourself?

“You’re not given your resume with your birth certificate. You create your life and you can recreate it. As the psychologist George Kelly says, “no one needs to be a victim of their own biography.” Or, as Carl Jung puts it, “I am not what has happened to me, I am what I choose to become.

You may find that the road you’re on becomes blocked and you have to explore other options. If you do that properly, you’ll find you have more aptitudes than you thought and more ways forward in your life than you think.

But…

“If you know what your Element is, you need the self-belief and determination to pursue it. If you don’t know what it is, you need to feel entitled to look for it.

As far as anyone can estimate, there might have been around eighty to one hundred and ten billion of us. And yet each of us is unique and every life is different. The gift of being human is that we have deep creative resources and from these we can continuously transform our lives if we choose. Whether you aim to change the whole world or the world within you, the limits are set as much by your imagination as by your current circumstances. This has been true for all people since the beginnings of human history.”

Godspeed,

TMo

Originally a Japanese concept, ikigai is often described as something like “your reason for being” or “your reason to get out of bed in the morning”.

But, as you’ll soon see, and as I have discovered in my research, nothing is quite as it seems when it comes to the world of ikigai and how it came to the West. And I want to walk you through my thinking here so you can get an idea of why there’s a bit of a problem with ikigai.

But first! What is it?

Well, I first came across the concept in Rob Bell’s excellent book How To Be Here:

“To be here is to embrace the spiritual challenge of your ikigai, doing the hard work of figuring out who you are and what you have to give the world.”

Then later I came across it in the form that many of you will be familiar with: Four concentric circles overlapping in a Venn Diagram where each circle is named “what you love”, “what the world needs”, “what can make money” and “what you are good at”.

And in the middle of this diagram is your goal: ikigai!

I fell in love with the simplicity and Bird’s Eye view perspective it builds.

I was in a branding workshop which used the diagram as a group exercise for helping us to discover common goals. It was really clarifying and straightforward.

Of course, I could see some limitations and simplifications with the diagram, but for me, it was a win! In my years of research trying to discover how to help people find their calling, this registered as the first non-western tool that I had come across.

Classically though, things started to get a bit more complicated when I began to look into ikigai for myself.

With ikigai though, even the first squeeze revealed that this famous diagram which I had fallen in love with is something of a misnomer. It was originally created in 2011 by Spanish author and psychological astrologer Andres Zuzunaga, and was later adapted in a hugely successful blog post by Marc Winn, who replaced the word “purpose” with “ikigai”. I started to realise that this diagram is a very heavily interpreted version of ikigai.

So much so that it calls into question whether it can really be called the same thing. If you’re interested, this blog post outlines some more of this story.

Next I came across the writing of Ken Mogi, a native Japanese speaker and author of several books on ikigai who tried to rectify the problem by outlining the differences between the traditional understanding of ikigai and this modern, western interpretation:

“this diagram is very strange, to say the least, because, I'm saying that this is useful. Of course, for the western readership, probably this diagram is useful in structuring what motivates you and what gives you pleasure, and so on. But this diagram is very strange because it defines ikigai as the intersection of all these things, what you love, what the world needs and what you can be paid for, and what you are good at, and ikigai is defined as the intersection of all these things.

That would be great if you can do something that satisfies all these requirements. But that is too narrow of a definition for ikigai. Because if you believe in this diagram, then what you love, but for what you cannot be paid for, for example, your hobby, is not ikigai, right? That's really rubbish. Maybe I shouldn't have said that word. But I would say again, it's rubbish.”

It seems like he wanted to set the record straight and provide an authentic fuller definition of the tradition.

From what I understand, the traditional concept is much more loose. It’s more of an idea than a tool. Just like our western understanding of ‘calling’ or ‘vocation’.

Anne-Laure Le Cunff puts it this way:

“What makes it such a powerful idea in today’s age of constant change and uncertainty is that ikigai doesn’t limit someone’s value in life to career and financial status. In fact, in a survey of 2,000 Japanese people conducted by Central Research Services, only a third of respondents considered work as their ikigai.

Rather, ikigai is about feeling your life makes a difference in people’s lives — the idea that you can contribute to other people’s lives simply by living a fulfilling life. And this idea can unlock many benefits.”

So, none of this is a problem until I realised that the westernised version is popular for a reason. It works. It’s simple. It took the traditional, somewhat hairy concept and, after giving it a trim and putting it in a suit, it sent it off to work as a tool. And when it comes to the actual term, it doesn’t seem to have much more to offer us than what we already have in our language already through words like ‘calling’, ‘purpose’ or in French, ‘raison d’être’.

Notice how Ken Mogi’s description here makes this explicit:

“As a Japanese, of course, I have been exposed to this concept of ikigai over many, many years. And I have been discussing ikigai in daily lives in a casual manner: that ikigai is something that is common in the Japanese culture …as I wrote in the book…we do not actually think so explicitly about ikigai because it's like the air we breathe. In Japan, we are aware of this concept of ikigai from childhood. And we don't actually discuss ikigai in expressed, rule-based, algorithmic ways.”

He goes on to say:

“Although I am thankful for anybody who has conceived of this diagram. I think it was, well, a job well done. But it's something that can also be misinformation or disinformation even for people who are interested in ikigai.”

This made clear to me that ikigai is more of a loose concept than a tool, and is not much—if at all—different from our idea of calling or raison d’être in daily use. If this is the case, then it raises the question of why would we use the Japanese term instead of others which are already known and somewhat more native to our culture? I can think of two reasons why we might:

1. The first is that it is cooler. It’s cooler because it sounds more exotic, and because all things Japanese are trendy right now.

2. Secondly, I think that ikigai might benefit from a kind of outsider effect where people are predisposed to receive new and unfamiliar ideas with a more open mind than things they have heard of before. This could possibly have more of an impact than the use of familiar ideas. This is the classsic “no prophet is accepted in his hometown” effect.

These are interesting reasons, but I don’t think that they are entirely convincing to me. And they don’t fully tell us what to do about the westernised version of ikigai. I’m left feeling a bit ambivalent, but ultimately slightly leaning towards the idea of rediscovering and mining our own concept of calling, moreso than trying to go all-in on adopting the ikigai worldview which, let’s face it, would be a tall order.

And then, what off the Westernised understanding of Ikigai? Is it authentic? Umm, nope! But is it useful? I think so. Certainly, as a short exercise it can be a really helpful tool and so we should embrace it. But we would also do well to acknowledge the differences, lest we cheapen and obscure the very real and living cultural heritage from which it comes and the whole way of looking at life which it refers to.

Would you like to hear more about ikigai? Let me know in the comments and then I can get a sense of whether you’d like to see a book review on the idea.

Godspeed,

T Mo

Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.

—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Life is unfair isn’t it?

Sometimes it feels like the unfairness of life is staring us right in the face. And, for me, this unfairness raises all sorts of thorny, difficult questions about our calling.

I have friends who range the full gamet of human capabilities — I can think of friends who seem to have been born with strength and skill and natural apptitudes in nearly all areas of life. They inspire jealously in those around them with their confidence and success.

But I also have friends who have severe disabilities. Friends who were born with such physical limitations that they are in a wheelchair 24/7 without the use of their arms or legs, and require round-the-clock care to stay alive.

We can’t ignore the inherent unfairness of life: we are all born with different gifts, different capacities and capabilities.

But what I’ve noticed is that how we react to this unfairness changes everything. And if we think that some people are excluded from a life of purpose by their lack of privileges, then a funny thing happens. If we think that some people are excluded, we tend to include ourselves in that group, because there is always someone more fortunate than us who can act as our excuse.

It goes something like this: “They are so lucky. Life must be so easy for them. This is why life is so hard for me, and so it’s not worth trying.”

While thinking this through, it has become clear to me that there are two different ways that we can understand purpose, which radically change our attitude to finding it for ourselves.

Sometimes we look at purpose as if it’s the missing puzzle-piece in our lives.

We say to ourselves, “if I can just find that piece, then I’ll feel complete.”

And until we find that piece, we are left empty and longing for something more.

But in reality our experience of purpose is more like a balloon.

Imagine that you have just blown a first breath into a balloon. What would you say if I asked you: “is it full?”

And then you blow another breath into it. “Is it full now?”

And what about the third? The fourth?

The balloon is full. And then it gets fuller and fuller and fuller.

Our experience of purpose is much more like this.

We are all born with different sizes and shapes of balloons. What matters is not how big or impressive our balloon is. What matters is that we are meant to hold air. What matters is that we come alive when we find purpose, according to whatever capacity we have.

We are all born with different sizes and shapes of balloons, but we can all know and find purpose.

Aside from there being a strange kind of justice in this, it also leaves us with no more excuses to exclude ourselves from seeking out a calling of our own.

What are you waiting for?

Godspeed

TMo

I don’t know anything about the books; but I have most definitely been swept up in the sandstorm of love around the latest Dune films along with the rest of the world.

Me and my wife saw the first film when it arrived in cinemas and were lucky enough to go in with no expectations and find ourselves sucked into this whole new world of mystery and mayhem. Ever since, we have been eagerly awaiting the release of the second film and angling for baby sitters so we could go see it in the cinema.

It was during a re-watch of the first film that it dawned on me. This story is all about this young man, Paul Atreides, discovering his calling.

We follow along with Paul through all of his questions:
What is his destiny?
To what extent is his calling authentic?
What does it mean for him to step into his power?
And what does it look like to abuse that power?

I think that it’s this journey which ultimately gives the film it’s magic. Without these questions percolating through the story, it would certainly be a spectacle but it would not be captivating the minds of a generation like it is.

So let’s do it.

Let’s look at our calling according to Dune.

Paul Atreides has dreams

Dune one opens with this defining line, warbled through the voice of the Sarduakar:

Villeneuve wants to make it clear that dreams are the central theme of the film.

As Paul begins to have unusual dreams that seem to be guiding him, blurring the line between dream and premonition, things start to change. At first he hides them. Lying to his mother.

Later, as Paul confides in his closest friend Duncan about his strange premonitions, he is told that “dreams are nothing.” While his Mother on the other hand takes an active interest, encouraging him to take them seriously. There is an interesting exchange before he is presented before the reverend mother to be tested. She says “she wants to know about your dreams”, to which Paul replies, “Why does she want to know about my dreams?”.

Dune wants us to be investigating this connection between dreams and Paul’s future. They are more than just imagination, they really are messages from the deep.

Later, we find hints that Paul has come to see this too. In his conversation with the skeptical Liet Kynes, he convinces her by speaking to her things that he should not know: “I know you loved a Fremen warrior and lost him in battle. I know you walk in two worlds and are known by many names. I’ve seen your dream.”

Paul’s dreams only become more vivid and frequent as he follows his destiny.

All this talk of dreams and the desert and prophesies can’t help but recall that ancient story of Joseph and his coat. And in that story too, we are warned to take our dreams seriously, but that how we respond to them can get us into whole heaps of trouble as well as unlock our destiny.

Paul Atreides is called to greatness

To say that Paul Atreides has a calling on his life is an understatement.

What gradually unfolds in Dune takes the idea of calling and ramps it up to the max. Paul is not only a Duke, heir to the esteemed House Atreides who rule part of the galaxy, he is son of a Bene Gesserit mother who, it turns out have marked him out as a candidate to become the Kwisatz Haderach. The long-awaited result of a secret centuries-long genetics program designed to create a super-being capable of ruling over the galaxy using unprecedented powers of foresight. Um, wow.

Talk about tiger mum.

Seriously though, despite the crazy high stakes, somehow we are taken on Paul’s journey with him in a way that we can understand. We find ourselves trying to answer the same impossible question that he is: “How much of this is my real calling and what is manufactured? How much is what Paul really wants and how much is manipulated?”

The question we’re all asking is one that Paul asks his father:

Paul: “What if I’m not?”

Leto: “Not what.”

Paul: “The future of house Atreides.”

But there are hints that Paul really is destined for greatness, and that it’s not merely the contrivances of his pushy mother. His dreams are like prophesies. And it seems like he is being called to play a big role, seemingly by something greater than himself.

The reverend mother puts it this way: “a path has been laid. Let's hope he doesn't squander it.”

By the end of the first film, after the tragedy of losing his father, you can hear how this path is no longer something forced upon him but something he has claimed for himself:

“The emperor sent us here. And my father came. Not for spice. Not for the riches. But for the strength of your people. My road leads into the desert. I can see it. If you’ll have us, we will come.”

Listen to that: “…my road leads into the desert. I can see it.”

That’s so badass. Now even if it’s not on such an epic scale, I think that deep down it’s this kind of vision and confidence that we all love and long to discover for ourselves.

Paul Atreides must continue a legacy

What does it mean to fulfill your unique purpose when you are also expected to continue in a family legacy? Or to inherit a family identity? This is an age-old tension that must be very tricky for parents to navigate with gentleness.

It was only on a second viewing that I noticed what a perfect example Paul’s father Duke Leto provides of how a parent can navigate this complex situation with their child:

Leto is winning in the dad department here.

Somehow, in Paul’s story we also see a great example of how these two things can come together. That our calling is about embracing who we are as an individual, but who we are is in no small measure given to us in our family of origin.

In this story there is no conflict between Paul’s identity as Duke of the royal house Atreides, and with the specific purpose he must fulfill. It is simply integrated as another part of who he is. This is also demonstrated symbolically to the audience through the use of the Atreides house mascot: the matador.

This symbol captures the courageous spirit of his grandfather, and tells us so much about what it means to be an Atreides: they prevail by courage and cunning, rather than by might. This motif now works to foreshadow the manner in which Paul will triumph, and it tells us (and Paul) when he is on the right track.

I wonder if you have things like this in your own family or group of some kind? We often spontaneously create symbols like this to act as reminders of what our sacred values are, things which are usually kept unspoken. They can then keep us on track when we’re going astray. In a moment of cowardice, Paul could say “that’s just not the Atreides way.” The Atreides way is like the matador.

On a wider note, we are shown through Paul’s family that following our calling is just as much about accepting the responsibilities offered to us and responding well to the opportunities that come our way, as it is about going after our own individual desires.

Paul Atreides must die

Another theme that Dune brings out in Paul’s story is what he must sacrifice to follow his path.

As he is fleeing into the desert, one of Paul’s visions tells him “Paul Atreides must die for Kwisatz Haderach to rise. When you take a life, you take your own.” A hint that he must leave a part of himself behind.

Paul has to face this challenge at several points, including later where he must face certain death by drinking the “water of life”, a poison derived from young sandworm bile which no man has ever drunk before and lived. He knows that he needs to face his fears and go through this in order to survive and save Arrakis and himself.

This theme of the story rings so true, doesn’t it?

We all know instinctively that death to self is required on the journey to follow our calling. It’s that ancient pattern. We have to leave behind limiting versions of ourselves like seeds that must be broken open to allow a tree to grow. If we want to give our lives to serve something greater than ourselves, then it will cost all of us. It will stretch us beyond our current limits.

But for me personally, stepping away from the world of Dune for a moment, I think it’s important to mention that it’s only love which can truly sustain us on this journey. Sure we can throw ourselves into a big purpose and vision which will challenge and change us, but how can we know it won’t simply destroy us and corrupt us, unless our ultimate aim is to become love? Any other aim, however noble—whether it be self preservation, victory over oppression, or even achieving some new liberty—it will likely make you great, but it will surely make you a great monster in the end.

Paul Atreides must be humble

For those of us who haven’t read the books, it remains to be seen where Paul’s journey is going. And there are certainly hints that this is something of a cautionary tale that is unfolding.

But if it is a cautionary tale, one about how power corrupts even the best of us, or the destruction left in the wake of a messiah complex, it’s promising to be a sophisticated one. We’ve seen Paul wrestling at every step with the consequences of seizing power and how he can use it to serve others without being corrupted by it. I fear he will fail, and fail spectacularly.

The first two films have so far done a masterful job of seeding these very troubling questions into our psyche:
1. what will I do with my power?
And perhaps most hauntingly:
2. what will I not do with my power?

For on Paul’s journey to follow his ambition—his destiny, his desire, his calling—we see very quickly how the road to hell is paved with the best intentions. And we are left considering: what limits must I set on how I pursue my own ambitions?

I think we all intuitively resonate with the fraught nature of this dynamic, as it is one of the defining questions of our own lives: what will I do with my power? How can I ensure I will use it for good?

It’s good stuff! What do you like about it?

Godspeed,

T Mo

It’s no secret the way that this topic of time can engender great fear in us, but, rather awkwardly, there is also a healthy fear to be found in the contemplation of our finitude which we need to embrace.

So, in this spirit, I’m glad to present Oliver’s curious questions to you, confident that they will be productive for whatever stage you’re in.

He shares these five questions saying that “to ask them with any sincerity is already to have begun to come to grips with the reality of your situation and to start to make the most of your finite time.”

I’ve tried to include a short reflection on my own journey for each.

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1. Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what’s called for is a little discomfort?

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.
— C.S.Lewis

Our calling is always going to lead us in the direction of the unknown. To something that draws new things out of us and calls us to learn and grow. But the key is to know what season we’re in. We know instinctively how much we are being stretched, or whether we’ve been coasting for too long and letting our gifts go to waste.

This question is a great decider question. It’s the kind of question I would ask myself when I’m feeling stuck between two options. Either two great options, or two equally bad ones.

Oliver says you should “choose uncomfortable enlargement rather than comfortable diminishment whenever you can.”

This lesson became particularly clear to me once, when playing a computer game. (See mum, they’re NOT a waste of time!) I realised that when playing games I always want to keep on the edge of my abilities, taking risks and expanding experience points, in order to progress through the game as quickly as possible.

Why do I not have the same attitude toward life? Is it simply fear? During the game, I expect to make mistakes, venture into new areas and try on new ways of being all the time, that’s how I know I’m doing well.

The moment you gain a new skill or opportunity in a game, you exploit it.

What season are you in? Is it time to stretch yourself?

2. Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by, standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet?

If you were your own boss, would you quit?

Sometimes we drive ourselves to try to achieve things which we would never do to others.

When we find a passion, a vision, a calling to follow; we find that we want to give everything to it. And the way we pursue this passion can make all the normal boundaries a bit blurry.

Maybe we’ll work through lunch because we simply forgot to eat.

Maybe the boundaries between work life, home life and rest start to become more hazy than we’d like.

Whatever it is, it’s good to keep our vocation in perspective.

It’s because we don’t want to give up the vision that we find it hard to set reasonable boundaries for how we use our time. The way to beat it is to get real and get creative. Design for yourself a genuinely exciting and enjoyable way of working toward what you love.

The best way to use our finite time is by keeping this wholistic picture in view.

I know, for myself, I only end up getting sucked into working those extra hours when the work is enjoyable, because I’m so excited to jump into the work that I don’t really stop to think about the end point at the beginning. In my work at Fiasco this is called “time-boxing”. It’s way easier to time-box work that is difficult or a slog, but I realise now that it’s just as important to set reasonable limits for work that I love too.

“I have a theory that burnout is about resentment. And you beat it by knowing what it is you’re giving up that makes you resentful.”
—Marissa Mayer

3. In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be?

Are you using your time avoiding who you are? Treating present life as only valuable when you become who you should be?

What Oliver is getting at here, is that we can find ourselves in a sneaky little life loop. It’s a very bad vibe. It’s where we postpone our enjoyment of the present until we become a version of ourselves who we think deserves it. We earn our permission to relax through work. We earn enjoyment. We earn ourselves toward accepting praise and encouragement. Fun comes after work. Love comes after achievement. Dessert comes after vegetables.

It’s like dessert comes after vegetables, so I’ll wolf down this meal so I can get to dessert.

But why not enjoy the whole meal, idiot?

Hmm, for me, this one is a little hard to grasp hold of for some reason. Maybe it’s something that I’m yet to learn properly.

What I do know is that until we are able to acknowledge ourselves for who we are in the here and now, we will waste our lives on a fiction.

We will pursue goals that are not for us. Build and bully ourselves through a life that is designed for a more perfect version of ourselves who we are going to become later. And we’ll postpone our enjoyment of that life, until we have become that person we’re imagining.

We’ll be lost in the future, saying “life will be lovable when…” {fill in the blank here}

I think we all know that feeling of looking back on old versions of ourself with embarassment. Did I really sound like that? Was my work really that basic? Oh no. I know this feeling well.

What we forget is that this was the best we could do at the time. There was no other way to become who you are now. The problem is if we take the wrong lesson from this and accidentally project this idea into the future as well. We become perfectionists, perpetually embarrassed of who I was even a few weeks ago.

4. In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you’re doing?

The feeling of total authority is never going to arrive, so why not throw yourself in?

This question is not for the Elizabeth Holmes’ of the world. This is for those of us normal people who find the balance between healthy caution and full-blown paralysation a slippery one.

I think we all find ourselves being held back at times, without ever really consciously choosing it.

It’s those pesky little fears, and limiting beliefs we have about ourselves that jump in the driving seat from time to time without us even realising.

I think this question is a great one to return to from time to time in all areas of life; just to help us recognise when we’re being held back from doing what we need to:

“I’ll apply to that role when I have more experience” quickly becomes “…when I feel more confident that I’ll get it”.

“We’ll have kids when we’re ready” soon becomes “…when I’ve got my affairs in order.”

“I’ll have that tricky conversation when the time is right” soon becomes “…when I can ensure I won’t offend them.”

If this kind of reason-creep goes on unchecked, it becomes indefinite. And then there’s no limit to how much they will hold us back and waste our time. I shudder to think.

This is why it’s especially good to return to: “In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you’re doing?”

5. How would you spend your days differently if you didn’t care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition?

In a recent interview with UnHerd, John Vervaeke encouraged people searching for meaning to ask this question:

“What do I want to exist even if I don’t and how much of a difference do I make to that now?”

This sets a radically different perspective where we can help clarify what is worth spending our time on, even if it’s not something that we achieve ourselves.

All of mankind’s greatest, lasting and worthwhile achievements are literally impossible to achieve as an individual. Cathedrals are not built by a single bricklayer. Children are raised by a neighbourhood. Yet, just to be a part of these things is a great privilege and blessing.

I find this question really helpful for changing my frame and thinking about my vocation as a small contribution to a particular vision of the world, rather than a task to complete. And it reminds me that the rewards of following our calling are in the here and now; not because we find satisfaction in the completion, but through knowing we’re in the right place, spending our lives on beautiful investments.

Godspeed,

TMo

BEFORE WE BEGIN

I thought you should know, on account of the sheer irony, that I listened to this book while doing countless cleaning and DIY tasks, juggling parenting duties and recording notes in my phone. During the writing of this review, I got lost down the following research rabbit holes:

• The history of James Baldwin and his writings

• Keyboard shortcuts for using Notion

• Countless GoodReads quotes

• Buying a t-shirt from The Quiet Life

• How to sync my Music Library on a broken Apple Music App (!)

• Writing this, this and this

Stolen Focus

In this book, Hari shows how changes in lifestyle, technology and culture are having the combined effect of collapsing our attention.

He manages to put personal anecdotes and hard data to an experience which many of us will recognise: the gradual splitting and depletion of our ability and desire to focus. But what he also captures here, especially through his personal journey, is the reality of why this matters.

The truth is that our attention is not something that we can afford to lose. It is the very source of our agency and wellbeing; it is, in fact, who we are and what makes up the experience of being us.

I don’t want to overstate the case, but I can’t imagine that we will have any hope of grasping and pursuing our calling in any real sense, if we cannot bear to spend time in reflection, or follow a train of thought without reaching for our phones before it arrives at the first station.

Our attention is the doorway to our spiritual life, and therefore our calling.

This is my first big takeway:

Hijacking our attention will sabotage our intention.

But what can we do about it?

Johann argues that we must counteract the mass distraction with both sustained political action and by pursuing sources of flow in our own lives.

It’s a really enjoyable book overall, but let’s take a look specifically at what lessons we can draw from it about following our calling.

I spotted 4 big takeaways. The first we have just covered.

1. Hijacking our attention will sabotage our intention.

2. To reconnect with ourselves and our calling, we need to slow down.

3. We can’t just remove distractions, we have to fill our lives with flow.

4. Society has a role to play in our individual calling.

2. To reconnect with ourselves and our calling, we need to slow down

The list of causes that Johann delves into is quite overwhelming when all put together: sleep deprivation, invasive technology, addictive social media, processed food, parenting styles, pollution, free-market capitalism and others. But he sums up the point here:

There are certain things that you need to protect your attention from because they will sicken or stunt it. Too much speed, too much switching, too much stimuli, intrusive technology designed to hack and hook you, stress, exhaustion, processed food pumped with dyes that will amp you up, polluted air.

And maybe at the heart of them is the sense that society is speeding up.

“There’s this thing about speed that feels great…. Part of why we feel absorbed in this is that it’s awesome, right? You get to feel that you are connected to the whole world, and you feel that anything that happens on the topic, you can find out about it and learn about it.” But we told ourselves we could have a massive expansion in the amount of information we are exposed to, and the speed at which it hits us, with no costs. This is a delusion: “It becomes exhausting.” More importantly, Sune said, “what we are sacrificing is depth in all sorts of dimensions…. Depth takes time. And depth takes reflection. If you have to keep up with everything and send emails all the time, there’s no time to reach depth.”

The reality is, we need to slow down.

Slowing down, while painful at first, limits distraction and quiets the mind.

If we slow down, it will repair our attention and reconnect us with our own life.

“If you go too fast, you overload your abilities and they degrade. But when you practice moving at a speed that is compatible with human nature — and you build that into your daily life — you begin to train your attention and focus. Slowness nurtures attention, and speed shatters it.”

Slowing down also means giving up on the myth of multi-tasking.

“The average office worker now spends 40 percent of their work time wrongly believing they are ‘multitasking’—which means they are incurring all these costs for their attention and focus. In fact, uninterrupted time is becoming rare. One study found that most of us working in offices never get a whole hour uninterrupted in a normal day.”

We aren’t just distracted, we even develop a desire to become distracted:

if you have spent long enough being interrupted in your daily life, you will start to interrupt yourself even when you are set free from all these external interruptions. … I would never wait two minutes in a store without looking at my phone or reading a book. The idea of not filling every minute with stimulation panicked me, and I found it weird when I saw other people not doing it.

But if we slow down, we will start to recover what Hari calls our “daylight” attention, the kind of broad, big-picture attention that plays a vital role when thinking about our calling.

3. We can’t just remove distractions, we have to fill our lives with flow.

Simply removing distractions is not enough. It leaves us with craving, and maybe feeling guilty too.

“To have a good life, it is not enough to remove what is wrong with it,” Mihaly has explained. “We also need a positive goal; otherwise why keep going?” In our normal lives, many of us try to seek relief from distraction simply by crashing—we try to recover from a day of overload by collapsing in front of the TV. But if you only break away from distraction into rest—if you don’t replace it with a positive goal you are striving toward—you will always be pulled back to distraction sooner or later. The more powerful path out of distraction is to find your flow.”

Flow is a term borrowed from psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, referring to a state of consciousness where people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. Through his work, Mihály spotted that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is being in the state of flow.

“Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act.”
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

To find out more about what flow is, and the background behind the idea, check out this post here and this article from Positive Psychology.

Hari says that:

“To find flow, you need to choose one single goal; make sure your goal is meaningful to you; and try to push yourself to the edge of your abilities. Once you have created these conditions, and you hit flow, you can recognize it because it’s a distinctive mental state. You feel you are purely present in the moment. You experience a loss of self-consciousness. In this state it’s like your ego has vanished and you have merged with the task—like you are the rock you are climbing.”

Seeking out flow looks like:

• Getting into the zone with physical practices like yoga, Jiu Jitsu, or for me it would be a good football match.

• Losing yourself in absorbing creative tasks like painting, writing or reading.

• Mental practices like worship, prayer and meditation.

• Anything that requires monotasking, with just the right amount of challenge.

“Fragmentation makes you smaller, shallower, angrier. Flow makes you bigger, deeper, calmer. Fragmentation shrinks us. Flow expands us.”

And if you think back through experiences in your life where you have experienced flow, it can be a great sign that you are where you’re supposed to be.

“The best experiences in life that I had, when I thought back on it, came from times when I had been in the mountains climbing…climbing and doing something really kind of difficult and dangerous—but within the scope of what I could do.” When you are approaching death, I thought, you won’t think about your reinforcements—the likes and retweets—you’ll think about your moments of flow.”

When have you experienced this kind of deep, fully immersive and energising focus? What sorts of activities were you doing? How could you design a life with more of this kind of work in it?

4. Society has a role to play in our individual calling

Johann makes a point to show how it is an unfair and losing strategy for the burden of strengthening our attention to fall on individuals. The combined cultural forces levied against us, are so strong that we need combined political action to help.

“Democracy requires the ability of a population to pay attention long enough to identify real problems, distinguish them from fantasies, come up with solutions, and hold their leaders accountable if they fail to deliver them.”

“The truth is that you are living in a system that is pouring acid on your attention every day, and then you are being told to blame yourself and to fiddle with your own habits while the world’s attention burns.”

Often when we think of ‘discovering our calling’, we can fall into the trap of thinking that it’s an exclusively individualistic idea. Selfish even, or self-indulgent. A kind of luxury belief, reserved for the privileged who can afford to pursue their niche preferences. And it’s easy to see why, because finding a meaningful life necessarily includes and embraces the uniqueness of each person’s circumstances, character and qualities.

But, and this is a crucial ‘but’, there is no ‘calling’ which would lead you to a more wasted life. Or a more selfish, destructive life. Our calling always seems to have the same pattern: recognising our powers and turning them toward the service of others. People who have found their purpose, are powerful and productive members of society—not least because they are actually happy.

This is also a good reminder that in the journey to live a life of purpose, we need the help and support of mentors, teachers, friends, pastors and neighbours:

• to reflect back to us our character

• to encourage us when we’re on the right track

• to enjoy and celebrate our gifts when they are offered

And, of course, this is a responsibility that we each have to one another. To be part of churches, communities and countries that, at the very least, don’t distract each other from a fulfilling life and, at best, help each other find it. For all of our sakes.

Godspeed,

TMo

HI FRIENDS

Until this recent Martin Luther King Jr day, I had never noticed that MLK included what I would call a “spirit of excellence” as such a central part of his message. It’s this idea that we do all things to the best of our ability not so that they will be noticed by others, but precisely because they cannot escape the notice of ourselves. And the achievement of excellence, even in menial tasks, engenders a kind of dignity and satisfaction in a person which lifts the spirit.

Further, it captures this idea that the human person can turn each of life’s ordinary tasks into a sacred practice when undertaken as an offering to the almighty.

It’s a code that has faithfully guided me to craft a purposeful, meaningful life out of whatever circumstances that come my way.

So, here are a few thinklings that capture this spirit.

MLK’S BLUEPRINT FOR YOUR LIFE

“If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say ‘here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.’”

Watch it ➔

RAJIV EXPLORES THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND THE WORLD’S BEST BED MAKERS

Rajiv is swiftly becoming this generation’s Mr Rogers. I love his gentle, honest and practical videos about doing everyday things with great care. This video in particular shows how a spirit of excellence shapes everything that they do in this Swedish bed-making factory.

Watch it ➔

AN INTERVIEW WITH MLK’S FRIEND AND SPEECH WRITER

The interview finished with this banger:

“Commit yourself irredeemably to the pursuit of personal excellence,” he says emphatically. “Be the very best that you can be. If you do that. . . our color becomes more relevant, because we demonstrate ‘black is beautiful’ not as some slogan, but black is beautiful because of its commitment to personal excellence, which has no color.”

Read it ➔

What types of work that I do tend to draw a spirit of excellence out of me?
What aspects of my life could I try to do excellently even though no one else will notice?

When I read Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday, I was struck by this amazing passage about Winston Churchill:

Winston Churchill had a productive life. He first saw combat at age twenty-one, and wrote his first bestselling book about it not long after. By twenty-six, he’d been elected to public office and would serve in government for the next six and half decades. He’d write some ten million words and over forty books, paint more than five hundred paintings, and give some twenty-three hundred speeches in the course of his time on this planet. In between all that, he managed to hold the positions of minister of defense, first lord of the admiralty, chancellor of the exchequer, and of course, prime minister of Britain, where he helped save the world from the Nazi menace. Then, to top it off, he spent his twilight years fighting the totalitarian communist menace.

As Paul Johnson, one of Churchill’s best biographers, would write, “The balance he maintained between flat-out work and creative and restorative leisure is worth study by anyone holding a top position.”

Now that is a full and varied life. But this is what really got me thinking:

Johnson as a seventeen-year-old, decades before his own career as a writer, met Churchill on the street and shouted to him, “Sir, to what do you attribute your success in life?” Immediately, Churchill replied, “Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.” Churchill conserved his energy so that he never shirked from a task, or backed down from a challenge. So that, for all this work and pushing, he never burned himself out or snuffed out the spark of joy that made life worth living.

This strange contradiction caught my attention. How can someone with this attitude also be this prolific? This question niggled at me. And it forced me to rethink my attitude toward productivity.

But before I dive into what that change is, we need a bit of background about me.

For a long time, I’ve been aware of a propensity I have toward laziness and passivity. As a teenager, my energy was 100% go with the flow. And later on in life, when experiencing the rewards of healthy ambition, I tried to reign in this tendency wherever I could. When weighing up a decision, I’d ask myself:
Am I just taking the easy option?
Am I afraid of trying and failing?
Am I afraid of how much this will demand of me?
Am I procrastinating from what really matters?

I developed a desire to push myself beyond my normal boundaries. To seek out discomfort, embrace ambition and try to be more proactive in my relationships and work-life.

But, I must confess, there has been this slow and creeping sense that this has not been working for me. Part of me feels that my pace of life has begun to snuff out that joy which he mentions. I find myself shirking responsibilities (or at least wanting to), becoming impatient with surprises, and longing for solitude just to keep resentment at bay. Early signs of overwork.

What struck me about this story about Churchill is the seeming contradiction here. He is this eminently hard-working and industrious person, who also seems to love his creature comforts, hold religiously to his daily routines and forcefully prioritize rest.

So much rest.

The passage goes on to say that he is taking two baths a day, having long siestas, working from bed for hours, reciting poetry at lunch, feeding the swans and strolling in the garden daily.

This is clearly a man who loves his leisure.

And that quote: “Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.” Isn’t that just laziness?

Surely this wouldn’t work for me as well, would it? I wouldn’t get anything done!?

The ugly reality, it turns out, is that maybe I haven’t learned to be productive, I have just learned instead to distrust my own instinct of when to relax.

And maybe Churchill can be as lazy as he likes as long as he is still courageous and dutiful and generous. Ryan captures this in his description of Churchill’s motivations:

Churchill conserved his energy so that he never shirked from a task, or backed down from a challenge. So that, for all this work and pushing, he never burned himself out or snuffed out the spark of joy that made life worth living.

I have also noticed that there are positive and useful motivations often hidden within my laziness. Those who are ‘lazy’ are much quicker to give up on schemes, plans and patterns of behaviour that are not working. They have a more boundaried approach to nonsense, which is a sadly underrated aspect of maturity and quality of love. Since I have seen this, I now hold this trait responsible for much of the spiritual and emotional growth that I’ve seen in my own life.

As I’ve been thinking this through, I am reminded of the verse in Ecclesiastes:

Better one handful with tranquility than two with toil and chasing after the wind. —Ecclesiastes 4:6

Or another translation:

One hand full of rest is better than two fists full of labor and striving after wind.
—Ecc 4:6

In context, the verse paints a picture of two types of workers. The lazy worker ‘folds their hands’ in a posture denoting passive resignation and thus is ruined by their inaction. The second worker takes two handfuls of ‘toil’ and simply has no room for enjoying life with their hands full of striving. To put it starkly, the message is something like two handfuls of labour are worthless if they cost you your peace in the long run.

Better one handful with tranquility than two with toil and chasing after the wind.

When you are following your calling, or you have a vision or passion or mission that you are pursuing in life, it can make it hard to truly believe this reality: that the best way to go ‘all in’ on living a purposeful life actually involves a lot of rest, and fun, and even pointlessness. And now I know that instead of being afraid of being lazy and paranoid about whether I am resting too much, I can just focus on being courageous and generous and responsible instead.

Godspeed,

TMo

HI FRIENDS

Normally in the new year people start making their resolutions. I love it. There’s nothing wrong with using the new year as an opportunity to mark a refreshing ritual of transformation. But sometimes the goal-setting ferver can be counter-productive and even distracting. So I thought it would be fun to collect together some thinklings which question “goals” in favour of something more wholistic: your calling.

So, grab yourself a big bucket of salt, and enjoy some of these thinklings with me.

A TED TALK ABOUT WHY YOU SHOULD STOP SETTING GOALS

In this talk, Emmanuel Acho shares some interesting thoughts on the reasons that we set goals. “We’ve been indoctrinated with a belief that we have to set goals to achieve.”

Watch it ➔

JAMES CLEAR ON SWAPPING GOALS FOR SYSTEMS

“The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.

With outcome-based habits, the focus is on what you want to achieve. With identity-based habits, the focus is on who you wish to become.

Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress. If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.”

—James Clear, Atomic Habits

A random user on Twitter: “I like to clarify my roles rather more than my goals.”

MESSI DOESN’T THINK ABOUT SCORING

This video starts off as a technical dissection of Messi’s approach to defending, but by the 5 minute mark, it turns into a fascinating insight into the mindset of the greatest player in history. “Every time, I go out on the pitch”, he says, “I think less about the goal and more about the game”.

Watch it ➔

CONSIDERING CONDITION-DIRECTEDNESS

I found this short blog post, although heady, quite intriguing. Katya uses the language of “condition orientation” to describe a different way of being purposeful where simple goals no longer work.

Read it ➔

We started the year looking at how a scientifically-minded journaling exercise called Future Authoring changed my life and helped start me on this journey of investigating vocation. You can also listen to this one on audio, and try the exercise yourself.

Next we started our first of four book reviews for the year with Mastery by Robert Greene. We also looked at Bob Goff’s Undistracted, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl and, my favourite, Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. Check out the rest of my reviews on this page here.

Of course a huge part of my year was becoming a father in July. By far the two most popular posts this year were the times I wrote about how parenthood connected with purpose. First in this thinkling about why you should Keep Your Baby Names Secret, and then later on Purpose, Parenting and Prominence I shared the following:

“It was while learning the everyday ins and outs of caring for Ethan and Hannah that reminded me of the simple truth that purpose is not about prominence. We don’t have to lead extraordinary or unique lives in order to experience them as meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling.”

Last year also saw the Five Lies series, five posts exploring the lies that keep us from our calling. These are designed to dispel the many myths surrounding the topic:

Lie #1: It’s just a job

Lie #2: It’s elite

Lie #3: It’s too late

Lie #4: It’s just what I want

Lie #5: It’s self-indulgent

Also of note is that I started a new Thoughts on Purpose Weekly format, designed to help share useful links and resources. I’d really appreciate your thoughts on whether this works for you:

But what did I learn?

Well, in what was a very full year, here are the 3 key things that I discovered about vocation in 2023:

1. Vocation is for everyone

In a year where I was concerned that I might outgrow my interest in helping others find their vocation, or simply not have enough time once our first child arrived, I am happy to say that I was wrong about this. It’s more relevant than ever. What does a parent long for more than a happy life for their child? And what better way is there than setting an example and finding a deep sense of purpose for myself?

I have been encouraged and surprised by the responses to my writing this year, which seemed to come at just the right time and from people in all walks of life. From those completely happy in their vocation, to those who’ve recently lost their jobs.

I’ve been encouraged to keep writing, even as it becomes more difficult to find the time. After all, it seems to be true what Viktor Frankl says that we are each continually “questioned by life”, so let’s explore the answers together? We’d be silly not to.

Have you got a juicy question that you’re mulling over? Why not ask it in the comments because I’d love to try and answer it in a future post:

Leave a comment

2. Vocation is necessary, but it’s not everything

For me, the simple realisation—that vocation is necessary, but not everything—fixed some particularly chewy concerns I had.

It’s like with the flourishing of plants: yes, water is indispensable and necessary to the growth of plants, but it’s not everything. They also need nutrients and sunlight to fully thrive.

So it is with purpose. It isn’t everything, and we should resist this desire to make finding our calling our ‘one thing’ that will solve all our problems. But, I also see all around me, that there is a particular cultural dynamic which is leaving us starved for direction and a sense of being used for a greater purpose — a sense of calling.

So if, like me, you are feeling drawn to find greater purpose in your life and work; then we can say “yes!” to our calling, “yes!” to more meaningful work, “yes!” to exercising our unique gifts, while also “yes!” to maintaining health, finances and relationships.

You can hear my thoughts laid out in this piece here, one of our most popular of the year.

3. Vocation is a very Christian concept

Now that we’re into our second year of Thoughts on Purpose, I have been surprised to find that nearly all of the resources I am finding for teaching and guidance on the subject are explicitly Christian.

Being a Christian myself, I began thinking that this was just a cultural bubble that I was in. But after two years now, I’m beginning to accept the fact that the concept of vocation not only finds it’s roots in Christianity, but that the broadly eastern religions (Buddhism and Hinduism for example) either lack a similar idea or are even antagonistic towards it, due to a whole host of theological and cultural factors.

The one outlier I have found so far is the idea of Dharma in Hinduism, made charmingly accessible by Jay Shetty here, but unfortunately the Caste system can’t exactly be said to be responsible for encouraging people to follow their purpose throughout the centuries.

I would love to be proven wrong, so please do send me whatever thoughts or links you have. I am particularly interested in other religions or philosophies outside my sphere.

So, if this blog is starting to sound pretty Christian, it’s not for a lack of open-mindedness. I’ll be delving more directly into the theological beliefs behind vocation this year, so atheists out there, hold onto your hats!

Coming in 2024

• How can we win the war between self-acceptance and self-improvement?

• Book reviews of Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, Finding your element by Ken Robinson, Designing your Life and more.

• More tools for discovering your passion like the Enneagram and the Sparketypes Assessment.

• Can we apply design-thinking to our whole lives?

I’m looking forward to it, and I hope you are too.

Godspeed,

TMo.

In times of confusion, when I’m not sure where I’m headed in life, I have a north star that I return to.

I was reminded of this north star while listening to someone share their struggles with lack of direction in this YouTube video. The story being shared is one that I’m sure many of you will be familiar with. A woman shares her therapeutic journey from early life experiences, how she developed people-pleasing tendencies as a defense mechanism, and then eventually losing touch with what she really wants in life.

While trying to prove herself to others and perform for them, she lost touch with her own desires, interests and counsel.

I was reminded of that familiar feeling of being stuck in a spiral of self-criticism and self-doubt, that makes you unable to know what to do next.

We all find ourselves with times like this. Feeling aimless. Bogged down in indecision. Unsure where to go next, trying to predict the future and afraid that we’ll make the ‘wrong’ choice.

When we find our self in this situation, struggling with the complexity of life, we need to keep it simple.

Here is my simple first step toward finding your vocation:

“Do all things with love”.

When you don’t know what you are good at anymore:

Do all things with love.

When you can’t decide whether to stay in that job or go to something new:

Do all things with love.

When you are in a prison of indecision, and it seems like every option might lead to regrets:

Do all things with love.

Right where you are now:

Do all things with love and you can’t go wrong.

You can’t go wrong, because love is the best way to be.

I learnt this from Pete Rollins. It doesn’t matter if you believe life is meaningful, if you do not love you will experience it as meaningless. And it works both ways. Even if you believe life is utterly meaningless, if you love, you cannot help but experience it as overflowing with meaning.

Imagine a person who does all things with love.

It doesn’t matter what they started with, their life will become glorious. They are the kinds of people who bring richness to the wedding just as much as the wake. For the person who does all things with love, there is no missing out. They make the most of everything, always bringing their full selves. FOMO is a distant memory. Regrets are from a former time when there was fear of harsh self criticism and condemnation. Those who live like this are confident that they won’t get caught getting ready to love their life. They’re already doing it.

Don’t you want to be them? Any man or woman who can do such a thing with their life inspires jealousy and admiration from anyone they encounter, no matter how humble their specific work.

In the Christian tradition, our specific calling, our specific vocation is actually not our primary purpose. Our primary calling is to love1.

If your ideas of what you should do with your life cannot fit happily inside of this definition, you’re off track.

And if you are bewildered, tired of looking for a way out of the woods, then let yourself off the hook. It’s not your job to predict the future. Your job is to love.

Resolve to do all things with love, right here, right now, as your only next step.

Then find the next best thing to be done in love.

Then the next.

And the next.

This should become an unquestioned axiom of your life. Start right where you are now. No excuses.

Godspeed,

TMo.

Hi Friends,

I feel so blessed with the job that I have at Fiasco Design, a job which I have really enjoyed for more than a decade now, that even just thinking about quitting (which I’m not) fills me with fear. But, alas, if we are to follow our vocation we must at least consider such things from time to time, lest we become confined to a world of comfort.

My wife, on the other hand, has developed an impressive ability to spot new opportunities that suit the needs of her season in life and leap into them with real confidence and without hesitation. It’s impressive. It’s like she has a radar system constantly deployed, and a compass for chasing down her type of work.

So, basically here are some thinklings about quitting or sticking it out.

When we’re offered a promotion, it’s often a reward for our hard work and a complete no-brainer to accept it.

But the Peter Principle might have you thinking twice. A promotion, even in the same sector or role, could actually be moving you away from the work that you really love, and, as is common toward more managerial activities. It might pay more, but it might cost more too. There’s a shorter explainer video here too.

Check it out :)

Read the article

I also loved reading this short story about Novac Djokovic finding a new lease of life in his tennis…after quitting!

“I started to play freely,” he says of that season. “I became the kid that I was when I started playing.”

Fascinating.

Read it here

A short poem called Risk by Anais Nin:

PewDiePie discusses how he decided to quit his dream of YouTube despite life-changing success, and why he changed his mind and stuck with it anyway.

Watch Video

What signs would I expect to see if this season of my life has run it’s course? What would it look like to finish it well?

I was completely unprepared by how much this book about time would be relevant to our topic. I expected it to be good, but it was so much more helpful than I expected. It seems obvious to me now (now that I’ve finished the book, of course) that our relationship to time profoundly shapes how we go about seeking a meaningful life and fulfilling our purpose.

In recent years I have noticed a gradually increasing uneasiness in my relationship to time. And I have spoken to a few of our readers who share this experience. It’s almost inevitable that this will happen when we acknowledge that our lives are finite and we want to make the most of it. Y’know, no regrets and all that.

I’ve spoken to friends about this phenomena and noticed the role that climate anxiety and hustle culture plays in exacerbating this feeling of generalised rushiness.

I enjoyed this book so much, because it managed to address these seemingly insoluble issues in a generous and accessible way. So here are some of it’s major points, captured in a list of excerpts, that I hope can point you in the direction of peace while on the journey of making a meaningful life.

Subscribe now

PURSUING EFFICIENCY IS A TRAP

Once you stop believing that it might somehow be possible to avoid hard choices about time, its easier to make better ones. You begin to grasp that when there is too much to do, and there always will be, the only route to psychological freedom is to let go of the limit-denying fantasy of getting it all done and instead to focus on doing a few things that count.

There is nothing wrong with pursuing efficiency. But the way that we pursue efficiency matters. Productivity hacks—think #lifehacks—implicitly suggest that if we follow their advice, then we will get enough of the important things done to be at peace with time. It’s a fantasy because the definition of ‘what needs doing’ always expands to fill whatever time is available. Pursuing efficiency backfires in several ways:

• It creates more work for us: respond to more email, receive more email.

• Pits us against reality: life is inherently chaotic and impossible to fully control and anticipate/predict.

There is no end-point to the worship of efficiency. We have to decouple our peace of mind from the fantasy of ‘getting it all done’. He says:

You have to accept that there will always be too much to do. That you can’t avoid tough choices or make the world turn at your preferred speed… in exchange for accepting all that, you get to actually be here.

PURSUING EFFICIENCY WILL BACKFIRE

I love and enjoy being efficient, but Oliver helped me see that the pursuit of efficiency alone runs against some other crucial things that matter in life.

The points that really struck home for me were about community and patience. Firstly, on community:

As with money, it’s good to have plenty of time, all else being equal. But having all the time in the world isn’t much use if you’re forced to experience it all on your own. To do countless important things with time—to socialise, go on dates, bring up children, launch businesses, build political movements, make technological advances—it has to be synchronised with other people’s. In fact, having large amounts of time but no opportunity to use it collaboratively isn’t just useless but actively unpleasant – which is why, for premodern people, the worst of all punishments was to be physically ostracised, abandoned in some remote location where you couldn’t fall in with the rhythms of the tribe.

Time is valuable to the degree is syncs up with others too. It’s not individually siloed. You know that common experience of not being able to find time in schedules to meet up with friends? We could ask, is it that we don’t have the time, or that we’ve constructed lives which can’t be made to mesh?

Time is not best seen as a resource to hoard for yourself out of a sense of missing out, because missing out includes communal activities and joys - “your time can be too much your own”.

And finally, some of the things that we want to achieve or pursue will require patience. And, although patience is a power to not to do—the refusal to quit, the ability to not respond—it will be necessary for us to recognise and respond to our calling:

But as society accelerates, something shifts. In more and more contexts, patience becomes a form of power. In a world geared for hurry, the capacity to resist the urge to hurry – to allow things to take the time they take – is a way to gain purchase on the world, to do the work that counts, and to derive satisfaction from the doing itself, instead of deferring all your fulfilment to the future.

Sooo good. Can’t believe I hadn’t noticed these things before.

TIME IS NOT AN OBJECT THAT YOU HAVE BUT AN EXPERIENCE THAT YOU ARE

When we claim that we have time, what we really mean is that we expect it. We assume we have three hours or three days to do something…but it never actually comes into our possession. Any number of factors could confound your expectations, robbing you of the three hours you thought you had for that work project…

You only ever get to feel certain about the future once it’s already turned into the past.

The way we think about time can completely change our experience of it. Oliver makes the case that we are all becoming such experts at instrumentalising our time—that is, seeing it as a sort of object that we can own, grasp and use for a specific future outcome—that it’s distracting us from the actual experience of time itself. He puts it this way:

ON CAPITALISTS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO TIME:

…seeing things in this way helps explain the otherwise mysterious truth that rich people in capitalist countries are often surprisingly miserable. They’re very good at instrumentalizing their time… but in focussing so hard on instrumentalizing their time, they end up treating their lives in the present moment as nothing but a vehicle in which to travel toward a future state of happiness. And so their days are sapped of meaning even as their bank balances increase.

The point is that time is not something that we have, but something that we are. If we only think of how we use our time to create a future outcome, then our present experience is postponed. We come to wish that we were somewhere else, doing something more productive or purposeful or fun, when in reality the most wasteful thing we can do with our lives is to fail to inhabit the present moment.

We musn’t get caught getting ready to live.

FIND SOLACE IN ATELIC ACTIVITIES

Telos in latin means the ultimate object or aim. So the telos of a knife would be ‘to cut’. It follows then, that a ‘telic’ activity is something which you do in order to complete it: like an exam. No one is out here dedicating their life to taking exams, purely for the thrill of it — to hell with the results!

So, you see where we’re going here. Atelic activities are activities which you don’t do for the sole purpose of getting them done. When you say, ‘I’m going to take a walk’, it would be quite counter-productive to try to complete the walk as fast as possible because the purpose of the walk is to be on the walk, not to have done the walk.

A country walk, like listening to a favourite song or meeting friends for an evening of conversation, is thus a good example of what the philosopher Kieran Setiya calls an “atelic activity,” meaning that its value isn’t derived from its telos or ultimate aim. You shouldn’t be aiming to get a walk “done”; nor are you likely to reach a point in life when you’ve accomplished all the walking you were aiming to do. “You can stop doing these things, and you eventually will, but you cannot complete them,” Setiya explains. They have “no outcome whose achievement exhausts them and therefore brings them to an end.” And so the only reason to do them is for themselves alone…

I found this concept of Atelic activities very interesting, and I wondered if it could be a good guide for creating better goals. James Clear in Atomic Habits says we should choose identity-based goals instead of accomplishment based one’s so that they are rewarding in the process and don’t have a fixed end point. This means that instead of saying “I want to run a marathon”, we would say “I want to become a runner”, which is much more immediately rewarding and therefore motivating.

We might seek to incorporate into our daily lives more things we do for their own sake alone – to spend some of our time, in other words, on activities in which the only thing we’re trying to get from them is the doing itself.

It occurs to me, that once we notice this unhealthy pattern of motivation in our own life, then it can empower us to take charge of situations where we cannot choose a different activity. If we recognise our rushing to the end, then we can release ourselves from rushing to the finish and shift our attention to be more mindful, contemplative and present to the task.

IN SUMMARY

This book is difficult to summarise because it makes a kind of cumulative case. It takes apart bad ways of thinking about time, piece by piece to leave you with an overall feeling of calm.

My takeaway though, is that no matter how efficient you become, it will never make you at peace with time. A proper relationship with time begins by embracing our limitations as finite beings: if we can accept that we won’t be able to get everything we want done, then we won’t get sucked into the productivity spiral of doom.

There’s more practical advice from this book that I couldn’t include here. I look forward to sharing that in a future post.

MORE FROM OTHERS

• This video from NewelOfKnowledge picks out some equally interesting, but different points from my own.

• A powerful critique of the book here. Brad makes the point that much of Oliver’s advice is only helpful from within a framework of an ultimate divine purpose, and it offers little to those struggling with existential despair.

• A summary chapter on Atelic activities from the author on the Penguin website.

Hi Friends,

I have some more thinklings for you. Thinklings are what I like to call those little seeds of ideas that are just possibly the start of something new. They’re not quite fully formed yet, but they seem to be full of potential and give you this inkling that maybe they will lead to a new mindset, or a totally new way of being in the world.

What will they spark for you?

Enjoy your daily dose of thinklings for the day.

Something about the packaging of this article from the Good Life Project set me up with low expectations, but there is actually bucket loads of meaty and helpful practical guidance here.

They share the concept of “life crafting”, the 8 P’s of finding what you should do with your life and the difference between playing finite and infinite games.

Read it

“If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.”

—Bishop T.D.Jakes

Simon Sinek gives a nice and succinct definition of this concept of finite vs infinite games in this YouTube video. Although he is focused on applying these concepts to the business world, you can imagine how different our lives would be depending on which of these models we use to find purpose.

Are we setting ourselves aims that have a fixed end point? What happens if/when we finally get there? Can I redefine my aims as something more open-ended and rewarding in the present that won’t simply run out when I succeed?

I think there is much more for us to explore here.

Watch more on this topic

Is there a future me that will look back and wish that I didn’t rush through this?

Hi Friends,

Welcome to Thoughts on Purpose Weekly, our new more-regular format designed for sharing links and resources.

For a while now I have been trying to find a better way to share all of the links and resources that I have been saving up behind the scenes, without needing to write a fully rationalised think-piece about each one.

So, I’ll be sharing these link round-ups on a more regular basis (bi-weekly to start) but don’t worry, I’ll continue to share more long-form thoughts, book reviews and exercises in between.

They will feature:

• Meaningful Reading: recommended articles, books and tweets connected to vocation that I’ve found thought-provoking, challenging or helpful.

• Quote of the Moment: a list like this wouldn’t be complete without an inspiring quote, would it!?

• One to Watch: think YouTube videos, interviews and TV recommendations.

• News & Happenings: latest events related to my work on purpose.

• My Inspiration Question: a gateway to prompt reflection about finding purpose in your work and life. In the words of Richard Rohr, ‘questions are more transformative than answers’. So what better way to finish than with a question?

• + there’s room for much more! What would you like to see here?

Anyway, I hope you’re excited as I am about this change. And without further ado, let’s get into it.

I was completely unprepared by how much this book about time would be relevant to our topic. I expected it to be good, but it was so much more helpful than I expected. It seems obvious to me now that our relationship to time profoundly shapes how we go about seeking a meaningful life and fulfilling our purpose.

“We don’t have time, we are time.”

Book review coming soon.

Visit the author's website

“There is no greater gift you can give or receive than to honour your calling. It’s why you were born. And how you become most truly alive.”

—Oprah Winfrey

Paul Millerd has written a book called “The Pathless Path” about how to know you’re on the right path in life. He shares some of his story with Ali and the approach to navigating life that he discovered on the way.

There are really helpful timestamps for skipping to key moments.

Watch now

In case you missed it, I shared some thoughts about purpose and parenting. This one was very popular and I got some great responses to this post. Take a look if you haven’t already:

If you had to stop all of the work you were doing right now, which part of it would feel most unfinished?