It's Spiritual
More Thoughts on Purpose (04)
Purity of heart is to will one thing.
— Søren Kierkegaard
So much of what we mean when we talk about the ‘spiritual life’ seems to come down to motivation. Maybe we call it ‘the heart’ or ‘the soul’ or ‘the spirit’, but what we mean can be boiled down to our motivations for doing what we are doing.
I heard a nice summary of this from the rapper Milo: “purity of heart is to will one thing”. The idea is that if we have all of our motivations aligned to the highest values, then surely that is what it means to become a saint or to be holy.
With this in mind, it seems clear that we can’t talk about purpose and vocation without addressing our deepest motivations. But that presents us with a challenge because there are so many reasons why we might want to avoid this kind of deep work.
Maybe we believe it’s selfish and unproductive to spend time in reflection.
Maybe we don’t feel ready to leave behind the certainty of what we know and move into the confusing world of the heart.
Maybe it’s just easier to go with the flow of our surface-level culture and we’re too tired to disconnect from the world in order to reconnect with ourselves.
Maybe we are just too worn down by life to take a chance on following our deepest desires.
Maybe we are afraid that addressing our deepest desires will require us to become vulnerable again to the highs and lows. I've been there.
But as natural and as normal as these reactions may be, until we address them, they will be a roadblock - forever postponing a life of purpose and meaning.
And for some of us, that may require us to overlook some religious or spiritual language that would usually make us bristle, but which we should accept comes with the territory when discussing such unquantifiable things.
So I think it’s helpful right out of the gate to accept that if we are going to explore purpose and vocation in any meaningful way, then it has to go deep. We have to be willing to be surprised, to learn new things and maybe even be changed. It has to get real. It has to get spiritual.
Is that what you want? Are you ready for that?
Cause that’s what I want, and I hope you’re along for the ride.
Good luck and Godspeed
Founder of Howies shares his wisdom
David Hieatt describes the difference between hot passion and cold passion in this excellent and wide-reaching conversation about purpose in business.
Advice from Rich Roll
An interesting little clip of Rich talking about the importance of prioritizing experience over a career-oriented mindset.