“I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can’t find anybody who can tell me what they want.”
– Mark Twain
It sounds so simple. “What do we want?”
And, it’d be easier if it didn’t change as we go through life. There was a time that I wanted to be a fighter pilot. I still intend to teach in a classroom someday, and helping coach Wyatt’s Little League team checked the “baseball coach” box again, at least for a while. And, if I can retire someday, I still am willing to pay the University of Iowa to do football and basketball play-by-play on its network.
I wonder if we don’t over complicate it, though. What if our wants don’t synch with our purpose? What if we had to only pick one “want.”
Wow. That’d be difficult. I want to be a great dad. I want to be a better partner and husband. I want to be a good provider and difference-making leader. I want to be a good example. That’s a lot, but I am hopeful that there’s at least enough common thread there that Mark could teach me how to get it – or better yet that I can learn, regardless the teacher(s).
When it comes to finding our “true North,” it will be interesting, as individuals, just how well we can define what we want, and when we do, I wonder how simple it will be to learn how to get it…and what kind of difference it will allow us to make.
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