Harold Crossman asked for our opinions regarding personal mission
statements.
Let me introduce myself in this discussion group with a contribution to
this topic.
There are at least two different mental models which influence the
approach to personal mission:
1.) There is a given sense in your life, whether you know about or not.
Thinking about a mission is a way to find this sense. If you do so by
reviewing your experiences in the past, it will be a process of finding
patterns. But by no means, these patterns are your mission! As long as you
act according to these patterns, you are living in the past. So the task
is to overcome old patterns. According to this mental model, there won't
be vacuum if you do so. On the contrary you will feel that you come closer
to what the mission, the sense of your life is - it is a desire to
contribute to what ever it is. First it feels as if it is bigger, more
then "just" you. By the time, you come to a new definition of what "you"
are, fitting to your current mission. And the process will begin again.
This is more than learning - this is growing. I found a statement, that
applies independently from a special theme and reached dimension: "Live,
Love, Learn and Contribute".
2.) Unfortunately, the other mental model is quite common, although it is
highly inconsistent: There is no sense in life, as long as you don't asign
a sense to your life. A statement of mission is the act of asigning this
sense. It is inconsistent, because there is no way to get some sense for
daily purposes in a senseless world. It devides people into winner and
looser - to become a winner, you must decide on a "mission" and of you go.
The others must have done something wrong and are lost in the universe.
This model is a joke, but it is too bitter to laugh for it is a
fear-driven model. The "mission" becomes unrequestable, dogmatic. The
statement independent of a special theme could be "survive, fight,
struggle and maximize personal fitness"
Following conclusions seem to me important:
- The mission of many people seems to be to experience a life according
to model 2, so be careful to convince people that model 1 is the truth!
- If you want to live according model 1, do so and don't care to much
about model 2 people, although they will "care" for you, hate you.
Asking for your comments
Winfried Dressler
Winfried.Dressler@voith.de
--Winfried Dressler <winfried.dressler@voith.de>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>