A QUESTION TO START TODAY.....

A QUESTION TO START TODAY.....

In every age there has been a dominant worldview that people tended to conform to. In an age of faith, everyone asked “How can I best serve God?” This was their daily concern. In the Industrial Age the question shifted to economics and the overarching question was “How can I improve me and my family's lot in life?” In an age dominated by science the question shifted again—most people live every day in the questions “How do I keep up with progress?” and a significant few add “How do I add to it?”

I see these world “ages” mirrored somewhat in the phases of our personal lives as we journey from birth to death. Think of it as a re-statement of William Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man".

As times and circumstances change, so does our priority version of what is important, and usually we think, or at least hope, that what we have now is a better vision than the one which preceded this.

Yet when I step back, as I often do, to see the bigger picture, it seems that each age had one thing in common, and it wasn't God, economics, or progress. It was the fundamental idea that life has a better-than-even chance of being well lived only if you have a Vision. If you know what things, qualities and conditions are important to you, in what order they rank, and under what circumstances you will change that order of priorities, you're less likely to get belted around by forces you don't understand. You'll see choices and decisions in clearer air and find them easier to make and commit to. Without a vision, purpose and meaning get stymied. 

Whatever your sense of purpose may be at any given time, it turns out that the one question you could ask every day is this: How can I best further or fulfill my vision today? Whether they put it exactly in these words, this is the personal secret behind the greatest success stories. Those stories didn't just “happen”. Every story begins when someone dedicates his or her attention, time and energy to a plan, a project, or a set of values that is larger than any one individual.

What makes for a worthy life? Well, how long have you got? Maybe I can boil it down to this – a worthy vision, I think, needs to fulfill certain criteria.

1. Your vision should be suited to who you really are. It's not effective, I've found, to borrow from someone else's inspiration. Equally doomed is a vision tailored to show off an image you'd like to project to other people. Nor does an enterprise chosen out of obligation ever work out well for anybody. Your parents may desperately have wanted you to follow the family business or go to medical school, perhaps even because they weren't able to. My parents wanted me to be a schoolteacher – because they hadn't had that opportunity. Those are laudable motives, but it's a high- risk venture to adopt a vision that isn't really your own, or that isn't suited to your strengths. I had to break from my parents, strike out on my own, and find my own sense of self and a vision to express that. I'm still working on it.

2. Your vision should be valuable no matter how much money you expect to make out of it. In other words, it should speak to some value that is high on your list of long-time priorities. Of course, you can always make it your vision to get rich, but there are two problems with that. First, the day you arrive at a financial goal, it will tend to feel empty. Second, a life totally devoted to money invites greed and competition to fuel an insatiable desire. 

3. You should compare the possibilities that seem most appealing, which means doing research and dipping your toe into more than one pool. Philosophy, religion, science, art, music, business, and scholarship are rich with potential, and you owe it to yourself at least to sample what they are like before you make an all-in commitment to one thing. What I did was to prioritise the possibilities, then follow one path until it was exhausted, the move on to the next, and so on to the next, and the next.... don't get me wrong, I'm not recommending this as a good idea for you; it's just the way I chose to proceed on through. I did find, though, that one path led fairly naturally to the next, and so on. Looking back along my timeline, I see changes of direction - some of them quite dramatic, like my switch from a career as a musician and organist to that of  television producer. But there is Continuity there, too -- the skills of performance I learned a a musician taught me skills I'd need as a producer, which in turn taught me things I came to need as an actor and director. Continuity and Change chan go hand in hand -- if you let them.

4. Your vision should be ambitious. The old saying still holds true that a man's reach (or a woman's reach) should exceed his grasp. Settling for "anything -- whatever"  is not visionary, by any stretch of imagination. Pick something that will feel like a challenge every day for as long as you can see into the future. 

5. Finally, don't lose sight of two words that often escape notice when someone has burning ambition and drive: “happiness” and “love”. The more that pursuing the object of your ambition can increase these two qualities, in your life and the lives of others, the more worthwhile your life will feel as it unfolds. They will teach you how to balance Commitment and Surrender so that you achieve Mastery. A hugely successful life devoid of happiness and love is what Scrooges are made of.