Living the Significant Life by Peter L. Hirsch, Robert Shemin Read Free Book Online Page A

life has to offer, you might want to take your imaginative birthright and develop a powerful, passionate purpose right now.
    How do you do that? You do it the same way you develop beliefs that support you. You make it up.
    Write down your list of values again, followed by a sentence or two that includes a life purpose that would allow you to experience and express each value to the fullest. Remember that the key is to contribute to others. Be very clear: if your purpose does not include making a big difference in other people’s lives, it’s off the mark. Remember, too, that the purpose you’re going to write down isn’t cast in anything unchangeable. In fact, do it in pencil so you can make all the changes you want, whenever you want.
    Value 1

    Value 2

    Value 3

    Value 4

    Value 5
    Your life purpose could be further described as the following:
The cornerstone of your motivation
The keystone of your work ethic
Whatever calls forth your passion
The standard by which you judge your progress and whether or not you’re on or off track
The big dream in which all your other goals and aspirations play supporting parts
The reason for your success
Whatever gets you out of bed in the morning
    Like a book, a life purpose may not accurately be judged by its “cover.” A person’s life purpose may be disarmingly simple. In fact, the most powerful ones usually are.
    Peter once had the good fortune to speak with a man who had spent his life working closely with Mother Teresa in her clinic in Calcutta. He was curious about what life purpose lay behind this amazing woman, whose life and work had inspired so many people around the world. So he asked his new friend, and here’s what he said: “Mother’s purpose is to have people die with smiles on their faces.”
    “That’s it?” Peter thought. Here was one of the most awe-inspiring people in the world, a woman devoted to serving humanity, who gave up everything to work with the lowest outcasts and rejected poor of India, and all her purpose amounted to was having people die smiling ? It didn’t seem right.
    So Peter pressed for more details, and the man elaborated. He said that in the poverty-stricken streets where Mother Teresa worked her mission, most people died suffering, in agony, abandoned, and alone. That they should die with smiles on their faces, he said, was the fulfillment of Mother Teresa’s work. That’s how she knew that through faith and love, she had eased their pain and comforted their lives. Such a simple expression for such a powerful and meaningful purpose.
    Service to others is the key to a powerful life purpose. Remember that service brings out the best in all of us. When we are serving others, we really shine.
    Think about what your heart is telling you and take a crack at expanding the list you made before. Now write a rough draft of your life purpose on a separate sheet of paper.
    Once you’ve established your purpose, all the other success and happiness principles we’re going to explore in this book become easy.
    Brad Nelson knew from an early age that he wanted to be a doctor. He grew up watching medical dramas on television, treating his younger brother’s cuts and scrapes, and dreaming of the day he’d put on his white lab coat for the first time.
    By the time he reached college, Brad’s thoughts had taken a different direction. Too often, he skipped his chemistry study group to play touch football with his buddies, and Saturday night keggers were more tempting than studying biology. His medical school applications were rejected with stunning swiftness.
    Although becoming a doctor was no longer on the agenda, Brad was still interested in the medical field. After graduation, he took an entry-level job with Middle West Health Partners, a large nonprofit organization that owned several hospitals, urgent-care centers, physician practices, and other health care facilities. It seemed like a good use of his education, and since the company had so