As I’ve been reading The Alchemist I have been thinking and talking a lot lately about personal missions. Perhaps something I have neglected to really listen to enough. I was reading an article about commitment and how we will naturally be committed to something if it is our personal mission.
And it was talking about commitment not being an intellectual exercise. And I like this idea that it is not intellectual, but I don’t quite know how to reconcile this with hard times which sort of remove that natural desire to be committed. But I don’t for a second really think we should not be committed if it becomes too difficult and perhaps in turn intellectual.

But I could always just have it very wrong.

…and as for personal missions, it’s hard to reconcile the need to listen to ourselves and follow a personal mission, but also to follow the call to commitment. I think personal mission’s become difficult because we live in a world…which has a community and has people and our choices and missions and desires often affect other people. I don’t know what the balance between the individual and the community is really. They are both really important, but I don’t know how to value both equally. I’ve been thinking a lot this week that community is all just too hard. Too hard but too important, which leaves one in a very agonizing tension that tenses and laxes with the joyous dynamics of human interaction.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 10:59 am.