Ed's Blog

The Temporary Life: The Purpose Driven Life

I am a big fan of reading. There's something beautiful about learning, something intrinsically satisfying. When you couple that with sharing, or communicating to others - it's even better. Maybe that's how I found myself being a teacher or professor.

Anyway, enough about me! It's not about me. It's not about you (depending on your point of view). I'm writing this little essay on - "The Purpose Driven Life." That's both the topic of this short essay and the title of Rick Warren's book, the bestselling non-fiction book of 2003 and 2004. In fact, as the cover indicates, it's the best selling non-fiction, hard cover book of all time.

The book takes a very Christian perspective, however, I believe, based on my limited knowledge of others and of many religions I'm somewhat familiar with, that it is quite compatible with most everyone's core religious beliefs.

The Purpose Driven Life is for all those who wonder what it is they are on Earth for. And it's definitely needed by all those "mixed up" people you encounter every day and it's definitely for all of those famous folks you read about or watch on the Phil show, or Oprah, or Entertainment Tonight, or for those looking to be famous, rich, important, or other Earthly matters.

It's also an interesting book to read from a social perspective. If we think of societies from 4 perspectives: (1) communism, socialism, planned (2) capitalism based, (3) dictatorship based, or (4) religious based, they are all failures at some level. Communism doesn't work because it starts with the notion that people are good and that we will share, cooperate for the common good, but we don't. Hard work does not bring benefits above and beyond what the slackers acquire. There's no equity for the work. "What about me?" We cannot suppress self interest. In fact, the better life comes from cheating and being a member of the inner, planning establishment. Capitalism starts with people being self-centered and motivated for their own interests. By the invisible hand, more is created and more is available to be shared. The capitalistic United States started with the notion of - "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Through self interest people will produce for the common good. Of course, everything can be taken to extremes. We now have "American Idol!" (Think narcisism, self-interest taken to extremes without corresponding philanthropy, etc). Dictatorship based socities: start with one person's view of life, and of course, power corrupts, self-interest and power make a bad combination. Lastly, religious based societies - appear to place God and religion first, but, they are still controlled by people, with all of our faults, self-interests and corruption by power, and they are still doomed for failure.

What then is the answer for the world? Ha!, there isn't one, of course. There will always be imperfection, since man is flawed, weak, given-in to our self-interests and flaws. But, at least "The Purpose Driven Life" will get you to think about "what am I here on Earth for?"

In fact, I think the book does more than that. It informs you about God and love. And that's what it's all about. (The first chapter - "It's not about you").

posted by Unknown @ 6:52 AM