The
Four Purposes of Life: Finding Meaning
and
Direction in a Changing World
By Dan Millman
Author of
Way
of the Peaceful Warrior
Bestselling author distills a lifetime of learning on living with--and
on—purpose
Beloved teacher Dan Millman faces life’s fundamental questions: Why am I here?
What am I meant to do? Millman understands the primary human need for direction
and purpose. Here, in this straightforward and down-to-earth book, he shares
fresh, realistic techniques anyone can use to find and fulfill their fourfold
life purpose. The four purposes include:
Learning Life’s Lessons--Centering
around the premise that Earth is a school and daily life is our classroom.
Finding Your Career and Calling--Acknowledging
ones strengths and weaknesses and integrating both logic and intuition to
make the wisest possible life-decisions.
Discovering Your Life Path--Understanding
your hidden calling and pursuing your higher potential
Attending to this Arising Moment--Paying
close attention and making every moment count.
Writing with special consideration for those in transition or at a crossroads
such as graduation, raising a family, health challenges, career upheaval, or
impending retirement, Millman simply and beautifully addresses everything from
intuition to sexuality, making money to the meaning of service, predestination
to paying attention to the present. The result is an extraordinarily lucid guide
to nothing less than life and how to live it.
To
explore Dan’s book on Amazon.com, click here!
Here’s an excerpt:
With the pace of life accelerating, in a world of change, it’s not easy to
maintain our balance and sense of direction. Yet we strive to do so, because a
sense of direction, toward a meaningful goal, may be the better part of
happiness. In this pursuit, the journey may indeed matter more than the
destination--but without a destination to aim for there is no journey; we can
only wander.
We humans are goal seekers from infancy, drawn by the objects of our
desire. But somewhere along the way, most often in the dilemmas and angst of
adolescence, a sense of confusion obscures the simple desires of childhood. What
we want is muddied by expectations about what we (or others) think we should do.
We begin to doubt our desires, mistrust our motives, and wonder where we’re
going and why.
In my first book,
Way of the Peaceful Warrior, the old service station mechanic I
called Socrates suggested that all seeking--for knowledge or achievement, for
power or pleasure, for love or wealth or even spiritual experience--is driven by
the promise of happiness. But the search only reinforces the sense of dilemma
that sent us seeking in the first place. So he advised me to replace the search
for future happiness with the practice of “unreasonable happiness” in each
arising moment.
When my seeking ended and the practice began, I came to understand that
what we all need, even more than a happy feeling, is a clear purpose--a
meaningful goal or mission that connects us with other human beings. As Viktor
Frankl wrote in his book Man’s Search for
Meaning, this fundamental need for purpose and direction may be as important
to our psychological growth as eating is to our biological survival.
But the duties of our daily lives leave little time to contemplate life’s
larger questions, except on rare occasions, in the silent hours or in times of
transition or trauma, when we are compelled to ask: What do I really want? How
would I know if I had it? What would happen if I got it? Is getting what I want
going to take me to where I want to be? And finally, What is the purpose of my
life?
Maybe you’ve wondered why you’re here on Earth or what you’re here to
do--what the French call your raison d’être, your reason for being, an
organizing principle and sense of direction that gives shape and meaning to your
life. History provides numerous examples of iconic figures like Joan of Arc,
Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama, whose clarity of purpose
drew others to their missions like moths to the light.
The
Four Purposes of Life, which proposes some fundamental “reasons for
being,” contains elements from my previous works, presenting them in their full
context for the first time. The
book was inspired by my own quest for a purpose in life. I once believed that my
purpose was all about work, and I searched through my twenties and well into my
thirties for a career and calling. It took another decade of exploration and
intro-spection before I understood that career is only one of four primary
purposes in life.
But why four purposes? Some might argue that our sole (or soul) purpose
is learning to love--that whatever the question, love is the answer--or that
spiritual awakening or surrender to God is our ultimate aim. Others point out
that our primary biological purpose is family--bonding with a mate, and bearing
and caring for children. Still others might propose three or five or more
purposes, or even suggest that there are as many purposes as there are people.
Yet just as we divide all the days of the year into four seasons, and points on
a compass into four primary directions, sorting our experience into four
fundamental purposes helps us to create a sense of structure to better organize
our lives.. These four purposes also prepare us for, and point toward, the
ultimate or transcendental awakening promised by all the great spiritual
traditions.
The first of four purposes we’ll explore in this book--learning life’s
lessons--centers around the premise that Earth is a school and daily life is our
classroom, and that our daily challenges (in the core arenas of relationship,
work and finances, and health) bring learning, growth, and perspective. The
value of our life experience resides in what we learn in the process. Difficult
days may provide the most important lessons, helping us develop the awareness
and self-reflection that lead to higher wisdom.
The second purpose--finding your career and calling--underscores the
critical importance of self-knowledge, as well as integrating both logic and
intuition, in making the wisest possible life decisions. This section also shows
how the service you provide in the world can become a meaningful path of
personal and spiritual growth.
The third purpose--discovering your life path--addresses a hidden calling
you’re here to explore, a personal path that for most people remains obscure.
The information in this section sheds light on the strengths you possess and
challenges you face, highlighting a deeper mission you’re here to fulfill.
The fourth purpose--attending to this arising moment--brings the first
three into sharp focus and down to earth, enabling you to integrate all the
others with awareness and grace, here and now.
I wrote
The Four Purposes of Life for
anyone seeking deeper insight into themselves and their lives, but especially
for those at a crossroads, facing a challenge or change, when “business as
usual” no longer applies. I invite you to explore the four key purposes that can
provide meaning and direction in your life, and in a changing world.
To
explore Dan’s book on Amazon.com, click here!
Dan responds to some questions:
Q: How did you go from being a
college athlete and coach to writing books about personal and spiritual growth?
A:
In retrospect, it all seems a natural evolution in my case, combining a love for
teaching, leading me to first explore how to increase talent for sports, and
then into the larger arena of daily life and a quest for those skill-sets that
would improve our talent for living.
Q: Given the title of your book,
can you give us a short description of the four purposes?
And why these four?
A:
As I note in the book’s prologue, people have various ideas about our purpose
for living. Some say it’s all about
love, or service, or knowing God.
One could argue that there are ten or twenty purposes, or as many as there are
people. Still, just as we divide
the compass into four cardinal directions, it occurred to me (in a moment of
lucidity), that we are, most fundamentally, here to learn the lessons of life
and all that entails (the first purpose I present in the book); but we can’t
ignore that purpose involving our work--our career and in some cases our calling
(the second purpose). I wrote a major book, one of my most popular, called
The Life You Were Born to Live: A
Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose, so I couldn’t very well ignore this
mysterious system or what it reveals (covered in the third purpose); and
finally, I present what may be the most important purpose of all (the fourth
purpose)--the one that appears in each arising moment.
Q: In
The First Purpose--Learning Life’s
Lessons--you suggest that Earth is a perfect school and the daily life is our
classroom. Then what are courses we need to pass in order to graduate?
A:
Again, in a previous book--and a course I now present at
www.dailyom.com titled “Master the
Peaceful Warrior’s Path”--I present twelve gateways or golden keys to
self-mastery. These twelve arenas
address self-worth, self-discipline, energy, money, mind, intuition, emotions,
courage, self-knowledge, sexuality, love, and service. Yet in this new book, we
can appreciate these areas as required courses in the school of daily life--what
we are really here to master within
and through the theater of our work, relationships, and physical challenges.
Q: You wrote, “We learn to ride the
shifting tides of emotion like skillful surfers as we grasp
the great truth that we don’t need to
feel compassionate, peaceful, confident, courageous, happy, or kind—we only need
to behave that way.” Isn’t behaving differently from what we feel
a form of pretense or denial?
A:
This may be one of the most controversial areas of my teaching, because it runs
counter to our dominant social programming and beliefs about how we have to fix
or improve our feelings, or quiet our minds, before we can live well.
So let me put it in the simplest terms within our context here:
It is only possible to show courage when we are feeling afraid of
something. Is behaving with courage
when we feel afraid denial? I think
not. It is the same for any feeling
and any action. We can feel whatever we feel, yet behave with kindness, with
courage, in a peaceful way.
Paradoxically, doing so reflects a warrior’s spirit.
Q:
The Second Purpose deals with Finding
Your Career and Calling. Why is it important to differentiate between a career
and a calling?
A:
A primary purpose of this book was to replace confusion with clarity. Just as I
draw a clear distinction between self-esteem and self-worth in a previous work,
here it seems useful to help people understand that some of us have a higher
calling, drive or interest that may or may not be a career (or work that
produces income); and that not every career becomes a calling. Sometimes they
merge, and sometimes they remain separate in our lives.
Q: You write that many young people
are pressured to choose a career path before they really know themselves, so
they end up choosing what they think they should do rather than what they really
want to do. Can you say more about this?
A:
Until we know who we are--our talents, interests, and values--we may make the
right choices for the wrong person! Although there are exceptions, social
scientists say that early marriage, for example, is the number one predictor of
divorce. Similarly, having to pick a long-term career before we understand
ourselves often leads to a mismatch between work and emerging values. That’s why
I recommend in the book, “Until you find your career and calling, just get a
job. Meanwhile, stay open to new opportunities.”
Q:
The Third Purpose seems the most
mysterious, based on a number system and one’s date of birth. Where did you come
up with this as the third purpose of life?
A:
As I explain in the book, I learned the fundamental elements of this system from
an unusual mentor. Quite skeptical
myself at first, how working with the numbers in one’s date of birth could
possibly provide accurate information about core elements of one’s life, it was
only after working with many, many people and years of study that I fully came
to appreciate the power and clarity of this mysterious method, and how it
provided deep insight into our individual life path--information usually hidden
beneath the distractions of daily life.
Q: In
The Fourth Purpose, dealing with each
arising moment, you suggest that “there’s no such thing as a future decision?”
What do you mean by this?
A:
Thinking about doing something is the same as not doing it. We can think about
and talk about decisions we are going to make (in the future), but decision are
always made by action, in the present moment. The rest is the subjective
merry-go-round. As E.M. Forster wrote, “How can I know what I think until I see
what I do?”
Q: What steps can someone take to
immerse themselves in each moment, and find the flow or the zone, as some
athletes experience?
A:
I receive emails from a number of athletes who have experienced what feels like
a mystical moment of transcendence, and they want to know how to be in “the
zone” all the time. I respond that
the quality and intensity of our awareness and attention change all the time.
Naturally, there may be some moments that feel extraordinary, when a golfer can
“see” the line to the hole with absolute clarity, and a tennis play can put
every shot right on the line. We can increase such moments of clarity or
absorption by practicing what we do
rather than just doing it.
Q: Each of the four purposes leads readers toward greater clarity--even
spiritual awakening. In your other books you describe instances of your own
awakening. Can you select one recent moment of transcendence and share what you
felt with our readers?
A:
Many people love miracles and moments of transcendence--the idea of
getting ‘smacked across the head by a Cosmic Oar’--and many of us pursue such
altered states of consciousness by various means and methods. But the reality of
my life has been less like a light switch turning on, and more like a dimmer
switch slowly turned up, over time and experience--brighter in some moments than
others. Nature has always been my primary teacher--watching streams flow around
obstacles, pursuing the path of least resistance; observing how trees grow
strong roots, but flexible branches that bend in the wind; how the seasons
change in their own rhythmic cycles. The natural world, along with training (in
any sport or art) can teach us all the universal laws I describe in another
book, The Laws of Spirit. Now I'm happy to share the four purposes of
life that lend meaning and direction to anyone's life, in any moment--especially
helpful for those at a crossroads, in transition, going through changes.
Dan Millman
is the author of 17 books read
by millions of people in 29 languages. He teaches worldwide, speaking to men and
women from all walks of life, including leaders in the fields of health,
psychology, education, business, politics, sports, entertainment and the arts.
His website is
www.peacefulwarrior.com.
From the book
The
Four Purposes of Life.
Copyright c 2011 by Dan Millman. Reprinted with permission of H J Kramer / New
World Library, Novato, CA
To
explore Dan’s book on Amazon.com, click here!