MASTERS OF MEANING

Session 2: Finding One’s Mission despite Mistakes and Naysayers

Moderator: “Ok, if the audience could please settle, we’d like to take advantage of this time with our honored guests. Having invested their lives in the study of the human condition, these philosophers and motivational thinkers are here to enrich us with their findings. May we have the next questioner step forward to the microphone?”

PERSONAL MEANING

Question:
“So, how do I begin to find my unique and specific mission of meaning?”

Les Brown, motivational speaker/author: “Listen to the voice that’s in your heart, not your head, it will lead you to your goal.”

Jordan Peterson, renowned professor of psychology/lecturer: “There are a lot of problems around you in the world, some problems that bother you personally. They seem to call out to you, those problems. Those are the problems you should solve. And those, I think, are the call to adventure… It’s like, there’s a problem. It bothers me. O.K., do something! That’s your problem.”

Moderator: “Yes, standing to respond is the best-selling poet in America, Persian writer, scholar and mystic who is known by his shortened name, Rumi.”

Rumi: “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

Nodding, Paul Coelho, inspiring author: “Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.”

Moderator: “So in practicality, that might break down to considering the subjects to which one gravitates in discussions, reading, and hobbies. Assess one’s abilities and natural talents that others have noticed or acknowledged. And, it also seems important to consider one’s own life history. Maybe having survived a particular life experience, one has a passionate standpoint about abuse, alcoholism, mental illness or injustice. Maybe such experiences left indelible compassion for a certain segment of humanity: the elderly, the poor, the sick or those with special needs. And when each is considering his or her own particular flavor of resonating meaning, it’s also important to consider the people in this life one finds most heroic or worthy of respect.”

Jordan Peterson: “Look at who you don’t admire first.”

The auditorium rumbled with laughter.

Paul Coelho: “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”

Moderator: Yes, Mr. Alan Watts, British author and speaker interpreting eastern wisdom for the western world.

Alan Watts: “This is the real secret of life to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”

WRONG TURNS AND FAILURES

Question:
“I’ve made so many mistakes in the past, so many poor choices. How do I handle my failures?”

Alan Watts: “You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.”

Napoleon Hill, self-help author: “The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.”

Les Brown: “You have to be willing to let the person you are today to die (figuratively) so that you can give birth to the person you are meant to become.”

Moderator: “Dr. Frankl, you write so eloquently about how we are powerful as individuals in that we decide which choices will be brought to life and which will be condemned to non-existence.”

Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist, psychologist, and holocaust survivor: “Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”

OPPOSING FORCES

Question:
Some people in my life have very different ideas about the life purpose I should pursue. What do I do with the fear I have about following my own path?

Les Brown: “Your dream was given to you. If someone else can’t see it for you, that’s fine. It was given to you and not them. It’s your dream. Hold it. Nourish it. Cultivate it.”

Paul Coelho: “Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”

Moderator: “Mr. Coelho, in your book The Alchemist, what does the boy say about fear?”

Paul Coelho: “‘My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer…’”

Moderator: “And then the Alchemist says in response…”

Paul Coelho: ‘Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.’”

Moderator: Fear is the great paralyzer.

Les Brown: “Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, legendary author: “Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.”

Viktor Frankl: “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now.”

Moderator: Aha, kind of a deathbed perspective thing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain.”

Moderator: So, finding our own unique purpose may require handling resistance from others, facing related fears, and choosing again, but it will ultimately bring us to a reason we love and can believe in for being in this life. Let’s break now and continue our discussion in (click here) Session Three.

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