Mission

Today is a day that I will not forget. I witnessed a great man moved to tears over a great personal triumph. This great triumph was only personal in the sense that he had given so much to achieve it, and frankly without him it could not have been achieved. But, the beneficiaries of this feat were the people he had set out to lift and serve. For this, and other great accomplishments, his name will be in the history books. As I think about what I experienced today, aside from seeing the display of emotion, I am deeply moved by the fact that his tears were the manifestation of the joy that came from reaching a milestone in his personal mission. This accomplishment was not the result of someone else’s vision, it was genuinely his own. It was truly his mission. By mission I mean the work he was meant to accomplish and that perhaps only he could do.

I would argue we all have a mission. That may sound a little mystical, and perhaps it is. But, it is also a philosophical perspective, one which we could all choose to adopt in place of passing our days as though we had nothing special to offer this world. The more people I get to know, the more I am convinced we all have something unique to offer. However, I believe we all find it difficult to break out of the well-trodden path and do something that will indelibly impact this world. The world does not always reward visionaries. Visionaries, who set out to fulfill a mission in life, can be the proverbial nail that get hammered back into place by a society that often values conformity over many other virtues. But, what we should really fear is that we will not have accomplished all that we could have. I love the following quote from Dead Poets Society:

“To quote from Whitman, ‘O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless…of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?’ Answer. That you are here — that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”

I love the question, “what will your verse be?” It would be arrogance to think that in the grand scheme of things we would be a star in the play of humanity, but a verse, yes, we can contribute a verse in this great dramatic play of humankind. But, I wonder how often we play it so safe that we don’t even manage a single verse in the play.

Nelson Mandela said it well when he said: “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” That resonates deeply with me. But, at the same time, I see small-minded decisions in my past. Why did I make those decisions? Fear. But, fear of what? Should I not be more fearful of wasting my life? I like Steven Levy’s description of Larry Page in a quote from his book “In the Plex”:

“His intelligence and imagination were clear. But when you got to know him, what stood out was his ambition. It expressed itself not as a personal drive (though there was that, too) but as a general principle that everyone should think big and then make big things happen. He believed the only true failure was not attempting the audacious. ‘Even if you fail at your ambitious thing, it’s very hard to fail completely,’ he says. ‘That’s the thing that people don’t get.’“

The upshot is that if we set aside fear and lift our sights to more lofty goals even a partial failure takes us to unimaginable heights.

Coming back to the scene of the man I described above, I will admit to a twinge of jealousy as I contemplated the clarity that he enjoyed in penning his verse (that is selling his contributions way too short) in the play of humanity. Conversely, I cannot say I know precisely what it is that I am meant to achieve in this life. I hope the pursuit of my mission will not be Quixotic in nature, fighting windmills and other imagined foes. Rather, I hope that step by step by setting my sights higher I will find my way. One thing that is clear to me is that there is nothing I will do in my sojourn here on earth that will be more important than being a father. With a lot of hard work and more than a little luck perhaps one indelible mark I will leave will be in the hearts of three amazing children. If they genuinely believe in their heart of hearts that they can do anything, that they have missions, and that they believe in themselves enough to attempt the audacious, I am confident that this will be legacy enough for me. That will be enough to send reverberations through generations.

I apologize if this comes across as a bit highfalutin. That is not my intention, but I witnessed something today that really woke me up and I felt duty-bound in a way to be voice for the message of personal mission.

As I close, I would like to make a plea. If this message resonates, would you please pass it along? I genuinely believe in everyone’s capacity to do great things, but I think somewhere along the way many of us have lost sight of the greatness within. I have. Perhaps this blog post will not kindle a fire in anyone, but maybe, just maybe, it will.