Wright's Law, Or, The Purpose

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/laws-of-physics-cant-trump-the-bonds-of-love/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121225

I'm not really much of a physics kind of girl (and believe me, that is such an understatement). But the guy profiled in this documentary...well, he transcends being a physics teacher. He gets right into the heart of being human. If you have 10 or 15 minutes, watch the video and read the accompanying article.

 A few highlights:
“There is something a lot greater than energy. There’s something a lot greater than entropy. What’s the greatest thing?”
“Love,” his students whisper.

Okay, so that probably sounds a tad cliche, veering into after-school special territory. But it can be true, don't you think?

“That’s what makes the why of what we exist,” Mr. Wright tells the spellbound students. “In this great big universe, we have all those stars. Who cares? Well, somebody cares. Somebody cares about you a lot. As long as we care about each other, that’s where we go from here.”

So we don't know why the stars are there (or if you do, please enlighten me), or why we're here or if there's a why at all. But we do know that we're here, right? And caring about each other and being kind - well, that's one purpose.


“When you look at physics, it’s all about laws and how the world works,” he told me. “But if you don’t tie those laws into a much bigger purpose, the purpose in your heart, then they are going to sit there and ask the question ‘Who cares?’

To the purpose in our hearts.

Oprah's 2008 Commencement Speech

(For the full transcript of the speech, see: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/june18/como-061808.html)

"...walk through life eager and open to self-improvement and that which is going to best help you evolve, 'cause that's really why we're here, to evolve as human beings. To grow into more of ourselves, always moving to the next level of understanding, the next level of compassion and growth.
And I believe that there's a lesson in almost everything that you do and every experience, and getting the lesson is how you move forward."

Self-improvement can sound kind of hokey. But if you really think about it, you're trying to make yourself a better person. Who care if it sounds hokey? I want to evolve as a human being, and always keep growing.

"When you're doing the work you're meant to do, it feels right and every day is a bonus, regardless of what you're getting paid.
 ...
And how do you know when you're doing something right? How do you know that? It feels so. What I know now is that feelings are really your GPS system for life. When you're supposed to do something or not supposed to do something, your emotional guidance system lets you know...If it doesn't feel right, don't do it. That's the lesson...There are many times when you don't know what to do. When you don't know what to do, get still, get very still, until you do know what to do."

I'm going to keep searching for the work I'm meant to do. So far, I've learned about the work I'm not meant to do. And you know what? That's part of finding what you are meant to do. 

"...forget about the fast lane. If you really want to fly, just harness your power to your passion. Honor your calling. Everybody has one. Trust your heart and success will come to you.
...
But having a lot of money does not automatically make you a successful person. What you want is money and meaning. You want your work to be meaningful. Because meaning is what brings the real richness to your life. What you really want is to be surrounded by people you trust and treasure and by people who cherish you. That's when you're really rich."

There are so many different definitions of success. Mine includes doing meaningful work. I want to be excited to go off to work in the morning and find my work meaningful and be interested in things. Not just what I'm doing, but in what other people are doing, in what's happening in the world at large. (It can feel small sometimes, but a lot of things can happen out there!)

"If things go wrong, you hit a dead end—as you will—it's just life's way of saying time to change course. So, ask every failure—this is what I do with every failure, every crisis, every difficult time—I say, what is this here to teach me? And as soon as you get the lesson, you get to move on. If you really get the lesson, you pass and you don't have to repeat the class. If you don't get the lesson, it shows up wearing another pair of pants—or skirt—to give you some remedial work.
 But, if you ask the right question—not why is this happening, but what is this here to teach me?—it puts you in the place and space to get the lesson you need."

I'd like to approach failures this way. I need to work on asking what lessons are in the failures.

"This is what I know for sure: In order to be truly happy, you must live along with and you have to stand for something larger than yourself. Because life is a reciprocal exchange. To move forward you have to give back. And to me, that is the greatest lesson of life. To be happy, you have to give something back. ...if you're hurting, you need to help somebody ease their hurt...
...helping others is the way we help ourselves."

I completely agree. Okay, this is going to sound kind of silly, but I helped someone find a book at the library yesterday, and it made me feel pretty happy. Yes, it's a very small act (I didn't cure cancer or facilitate peace in the Middle East or anything like that), but I helped someone when I could have chosen not to. I didn't know him. I don't work at the library. But I took the time to help him and honestly, I improved my day and his. So go out there and help someone find a book or something. Improve your day and someone else's.


"So, I know this—that whether you're an actor, you offer your talent in the way that most inspires art. If you're an anatomist, you look at your gift as knowledge and service to healing... if you choose to offer your skills and talent in service, when you choose the paradigm of service, looking at life through that paradigm, it turns everything you do from a job into a gift."

Whatever you do, think of it as a gift.

To finding the lesson, honoring your calling, and helping others.

David McCullough, Jr.'s 2012 Commencement Speech

(Full text of the speech: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/commencement-speaker-blasts-students/2012/06/08/gJQATvF1MV_blog.html)

I've always liked reading commencement speeches. There's something sweet in just the very fact of a commencement speech, don't you think? One generation passing on advice and wisdom to the next. Listening to them (at least the ones I've heard in person - I don't remember anything from a single one I've heard), not so much. So I've been reading some lately, and thought I'd post a few quotes I especially liked.

David McCullough, Jr.'s speech made me laugh. I found it funny and witty and true.

If you’ve learned anything in your years here I hope it’s that education should be for, rather than material advantage, the exhilaration of learning. You’ve learned, too, I hope, as Sophocles assured us, that wisdom is the chief element of happiness. (Second is ice cream… just an fyi) I also hope you’ve learned enough to recognize how little you know… how little you know now… at the moment… for today is just the beginning. It’s where you go from here that matters.

I love how he mentions wisdom and ice cream in the same breath, pretty much. (Makes me want to go eat some ice cream and read Sophocles.) Plus, I agree whole-heartedly with what he says about what education is for. Honestly, a lot of the things I learned in school I have no idea if/when I'm ever going to need them...but I'm glad I know them. Well, some of them, at least.

And the thing about school and learning is that you keep learning after you're done with school. It's better in some ways, since you can decide to a much larger extent what you want to learn.

I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance. 

I need to work on this one.

And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life. Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it.

Yes, yes, yes.

Like accolades ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying byproduct. It’s what happens when you’re thinking about more important things. Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you. Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly. Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion–and those who will follow them. And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special.
Because everyone is.

Along with meaning, I've also been thinking about fulfillment lately. I'd like to figure out how to live a fulfilled life (along with everyone else). And of course it's paradoxical (at least according to McCullough, Jr.): "happens when you're thinking about more important things." It would be, wouldn't it?

I don't think there's any one recipe for living a fulfilled life. But I do think selflessness is (probably) a part of it.

So here's to finding (or at least embarking on a grand quest for) fulfillment and being selfless.