Purpose

Chip’s Thought: I feel such a kinship with my fellow New Mexican, Zee, having jumped on that Hedonic Treadmill believing that happiness was just one more accomplishment down the road. This is Zee’s second time teaching at MEA (first time was in Baja) and I witnessed just how inspired people were from her teaching.

Chip’s Note: I asked Ray to recite his poem at the start of a MEA Midwest alum regional chapter Zoom a couple of months ago and people appreciated it. Hope you do as well.

When you name it, you can claim it.

Many of us have "purpose performance anxiety." We feel dazed and confused about why we're here on earth while we believe all of our friends are deeply entwined with their purpose. It's almost like we're the only person on our cul-de-sac without a BMW, and we feel ashamed. If that's even 10% true for you, reread this paragraph and laugh at it with yourself. It's time to take life a little less seriously.

I’ve been feeling some “post-publish depression,” a sadness and loss of the adrenaline rush that I felt two weeks ago when my book “Learning to Love Midlife” (https://bit.ly/48ag4FH) was published so I’ve been doing some reflecting.

Americans have performance anxiety when it comes to our purpose. Everyone else on your block has one and you don’t, as if your purpose is a possession, a BMW or a second home. As I’ve written before, you can’t have the noun - purpose - unless you live the verb - being purposeful. I believe there are four paths to feeling purposeful: focus on something that either currently agitates or excites you, something you’re curious about, or something that feels lost from the past and your job is to reclaim it.

Chip’s Editorial Comment: I learn so much from Christine as an author, academic, coach, and human. I look forward to having her as a neighbor in Baja and she’ll be teaching her inaugural MEA workshop (taking much of what she researched at the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center in a couple of months).

This November, I spent an incredible week exploring purpose with Chip and Richard Leider and a group of amazing souls led by Thérèse O’Neill, who is a magnificent facilitator and teacher, and Caitlin Allen, our expert experience facilitator. Our week was a joyous exploration of some of the content we created for purpose over the years at MEA and testing some of the new content we have created for next year’s purpose pillar and core curriculum. The week was deep, provocative and creative. We explored the nature of purpose and our own individual purposes and found dozens of ways to learn from each other on our purpose journeys, we even did some art, drawing, dance and moving our way to clarity.

Since I’ve become a part of the MEA community the past two years, the notion of “purpose” has become more conscious to me since it's one of the MEA pillars. I’ve enjoyed hanging around with purpose…learning about others’ relationship with purpose and exploring mine.

A British online magazine asked women and men about their 20 most prized possessions. What do you notice when comparing the two lists below? Beyond the fact that men tend to fixate on expensive, tangible things (and their music in nostalgic forms: records and CDs) and women’s nostalgia is more focused on the family (photos, childhood pictures, children’s artwork, baby clothes, and parent’s wedding rings), there’s something seriously missing here.