On purpose

I’ve always loved me a good roadtrip.

With a group, with one other person, even alone, it just feels good to GO and look at something different. Get some good music playing, stop for an occasional fountain Diet Coke, milkshake, pack of Combos or M&Ms.

My (step)son Beau is a rising junior. He and his dad had already seen a number of schools in the Carolinas, plus UGA, of course. With Duke as the only standout thus far in his mind, I was not going to let him miss all the fabulous colleges in Alabama.

We started with my alma mater Samford (all the feels), scooted down to the University of Alabama (wow), grinded across the backroads of the state to Auburn (meh) and in a few hours, we’ll hit FSU before finally heading home.

I’ve learned a lot of things on this trip:

1. I do NOT have the stamina for this kind of thing that I used to. (I’m only 38! Why am I so exhausted?)
2. The music these kids listen to these days. I heard maybe two songs in two hours that I liked before playing the driver card. The rest, not a fan.
3. Cell phones, wi-fi, social media and Netflix will eventually be the death of relationships as we know them.
4. I do NOT, in fact, want to be a truckdriver for a living. (I used to think I might be a great truck driver, given all the aforementioned reasons I love roadtrips. But yeah, not every day. Hats off to those guys. Rock stars, I tell ya.)
5. The best place to have a real conversation with an almost 17-year-old guy is late at night, driving through BFE, Alabama where there’s no cell service. (Hee-hee.)

Beau and I have always had a wonderfully open relationship and I was looking forward to the one-on-one time. I tried to listen more than lecture (although a couple times, I just couldn’t help myself).

At one point during that delightful evening when his phone didn’t work, we got into some good stuff: faith, girls, the pros and cons of feelings, divorce, etc. He shared some things he’s gleaned from watching his four parents that I was able to clarify and asked some great questions.

“Do people ever get divorced later in life?”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“Unfortunately, yes. There’s the obnoxiously cliché mid-life crisis for guys who just want to feel young again and feel like the only way they can do that is to walk away from their families and start over with a younger model, of a car and a wife. AND there are the women who just want to feel ALIVE again and shock their husband with divorce papers as soon as that last kid moves out. They feel like they’ve lost themselves in their families, been giving and giving and giving and now it’s THEIR turn to live their lives, instead of just helping everybody else live theirs.”

I explained my heartbeat for women in those situations, the coaching class I’m teaching on the subject this fall and how you CAN have both/and, not just either/or. (Email me for details.)

Reminded me of The Greatest Generation documentary Brad and I watched a few weeks ago.

As Tom Brokaw highlighted my grandparents’ generation and the resulting following generations, a familiar theme began to rise from all the stories.

In a WAY oversimplified explanation, my grandparents’ generation was clear on their purpose from birth to death. As children: survive the Great Depression. As young adults: Save the world during WWII. After coming home: Rebuild the country from the ground up (build companies, families, financial stability, provide their kids with opportunities they never had).

Their purpose was clear. And because of that, they were able to be wildly successful and go down in history as The Greatest Generation.

The following generations haven’t had a the same clarity of purpose. The Vietnam War was not the super-obvious good vs. evil conflict. The government was not as trustworthy as it had been in the past. The country had already been rebuilt. So it was just a matter of figuring out where they fit into it. And the lack of clear purpose left many dazed and confused.

All the comforts of home they had not fought for. All the food they could eat that they didn’t work for. A life full of opportunities that left a large portion of that age group paralyzed instead of inspired.

Then enter Generation X and the Millennials. (Much has been written on this topic so I won’t get into those groups as much.)

But every generation following WWII has struggled with the same problem: lack of purpose.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, psychologist Sigmund Freud scandalized society with his theory that all human beings were after was pleasure (usually in the realm of sexuality).

A lesser known contemporary of Freud, Viktor Frankl, came along with his own mind-blowing hypothesis: Man’s chief desire in life was purpose. And if he can’t find that, he’ll SETTLE FOR pleasure.

I found a transcript of one of his sessions with a 19-year-old woman who was showing symptoms of schizophrenia:

Patient: What is going on within me?
Frankl: Don’t brood over yourself. Don’t inquire into the source of your trouble. Leave this to us doctors. We will steer and pilot you through the crisis. Well, isn’t there a goal beckoning you – say, an artistic assignment?
Patient: But this inner turmoil ….
Frankl: Don’t watch your inner turmoil, but turn your gaze to what is waiting for you. What counts is not what lurks in the depths, but what waits in the future, waits to be actualized by you….
Patient: But what is the origin of my trouble?
Frankl: Don’t focus on questions like this. Whatever the pathological process underlying your psychological affliction may be, we will cure you. Therefore, don’t be concerned with the strange feelings haunting you. Ignore them until we make you get rid of them. Don’t watch them. Don’t fight them. Imagine, there are about a dozen great things, works which wait to be created by Anna, and there is no one who could achieve and accomplish it but Anna. No one could replace her in this assignment. They will be your creations, and if you don’t create them, they will remain uncreated forever…
Patient: Doctor, I believe in what you say. It is a message which makes me happy.

While feelings are important, created by God to help us fully experience life, I am convinced that the quickest way to make yourself miserable is to focus on yourself and how you’re feeling.

Am I fulfilled?

Am I appreciated?

Who am I really?

What was I created for?

The pondering of these questions without the pursuit of their answers is a guaranteed path to depression, anxiety and dissatisfaction.

And this is why I have decided to make a living at helping people discover their purpose and live the crap out of it.

The cure for many of our common ailments of discontent, boredom, loneliness, overscheduling, living other people’s lives while ignoring out own is finding the meaning, OUR meaning for existence and focusing in on that as hard as we can.

Otherwise, we medicate with ‘pleasure,’ to fill the void of a purposeless life. And those are just temporary fixes. God, in His great love and mercy, made sure the pleasures of this world will never satisfy. The only thing that will put our anxious hearts at peace is doing that which we were created to do.

So let’s get on with it!

(And let me know if you need any help!)