the purpose of life in 12 words
This was also published as an email to my list. If you want to join…
So I’m part of this men’s group with a few of my friends.
When I hear that phrase, the first thing I think of is a Bible study. So I’ll go ahead and say that it’s not a Bible study.
Basically, we meet up every 2 weeks (on Google Hangouts lately) and talk about the important things in life. Anyway…
My roommate Cody leads it. And last night, he asked us to do something we all thought was crazy:
“In three sentences, answer the question: ‘what is the purpose of life?’”
“Oh. Cool. Yeah. Just define the whole purpose of life in three sentences. No big deal,” we all said.
But despite our skepticism, we did it.
And we ended up with some pretty (in my opinion) profound stuff.
Here’s what I wrote down:
“Treat people well. Discover your self. Use your gift to the fullest.”
I split “your” and “self” into 2 words on purpose, because I think we all kind of have two sides to us… maybe more. And we have to go searching for that real, authentic part of ourselves.
Anyway, this whole exercise reminded me of something I learned from Justin Blackman about a month ago at The Copywriter Club in Real Life event:
When it comes to creativity, constraints are your friend.
As impossible as it seemed at the beginning, having to put the entire purpose of life into three sentences made us all focus on what was really important.
So the next time you’re feeling tied up by a client or like you have a seemingly impossible task ahead of you… try to embrace the constraints.
Accept the box you have to operate in, and you’ll be more likely to create something great.
Hope that’s helpful.
Robert