Remembering Your Own Highest Goal

Sometimes this idea of the two possible paths in life upsets people. Students who have already accepted jobs that they know are not fulfilling wonder if they have made an unalterable error. People who are already working at something that doesn’t give them joy and meaning can wonder if it is too late to do anything about it. Yet even when they want to go in a new direction, they don’t know their highest goal, so they feel lost.

All of this confusion comes from not holding onto your own highest goal. We all glimpse it from time to time, but only if we are attentive to this guiding star when it appears can we steer by it. I know this from my own experience.

When I was twenty, I wasn’t used to doing much on my own. I had done well as a student. But I was treated by my family as something of an idiot savant—bright in school, but unable to deal with the real world. I believed what my family told me. I accepted their guidance and handling of worldly affairs.

Then I was faced with helping friends, a couple, out of crisis. She was pregnant, and they wanted to get married before they told their parents. None of the three of us were yet the legal age of twenty-one, but they asked me to make arrangements for them. I was on my own; I couldn’t depend on my parents or older brother this time.

I called government agencies and people who might perform the ceremony. I was nervous and unsure of myself, but I noticed that once I got on the calls, I was very resourceful. I came up with alternatives, I made suggestions, I let no difficulty stand. I just kept going. And everything worked out.

We drove to another state, and I stood up for them with the woman’s sister at the little ceremony. That incident altered my perception of what was possible—both for me and for the world. It opened me to the resources that are always there for us.

Of course, I quickly reverted back to shyness and concentrating on what seemed most important to me: eking out a career in the context of what society and my family thought was appropriate—not what my greatest possibility and contribution might be—often acting out of feelings of alienation, anxiety and anger. But something about that experience stayed with me. Every once in a while I had to step up to a challenge that I hadn’t faced before (which happened frequently after I myself got married and took on responsibilities as husband and father). I realized that the same resources available to me earlier were available in these other situations. The more I drew upon my larger inner resources, the easier it became to use them in new situations.

I didn’t know it, but I was building the basis for the career I have now—helping people to live from their inner resources all the time and in all situations. At the same time, I was relating more and more to the highest goal for me. I’ve learned that the more people can live this way, the more they begin to love and respect themselves and the people around them. They can serve in a meaningful way. They can grow in the most difficult of situations.