Assignment #16 What is the purpose- Benjamin Webster

Benjamin Webster

Mr. Logsdon

AP Lang

18 November 2019

What is the purpose?

In elementary school, my class did a project where you had to make a paper cutout of yourself and dress it in attire for what you want to do when you grew up. The usual things picked were doctors, athletes, and scientists. Others picked things like a chef or a first responder. I, however stood above by picking a superhero. My parents probably thought it was cute and went along with the idea. I didn’t think so. But my teacher and my peers brushed this off as something not serious. Unironically, I thought this was my purpose. Life would be simpler that way. Everyone struggles to climb their mountain. The mountain can vary in size and degree. At the summit is your purpose. Notice how the people in this graphic are leaving. This represents the quashing by our own education system on purpose. A substantial change in the education system is long overdue. It has social, economic and physiological benefits when a teenager can already know what their purpose is whether that involves personal, career, and lifestyle choices.     

What is your purpose? I certainly have no clue about it, I haven’t even figured out where I want to end up in five years no less. From my peers, the expectation is a lecture of how you are going to college, get a 9-5 job, fall in love, have a family, grow old, play with your grandkids, and die knowing you had lived. That isn’t your purpose; a destiny perhaps, but not a purpose. It’s not necessarily the previously mentioned generic life. But in today’s world, despite things being destigmatized like homosexuality and mental health, we as a society fail miserably when we face tough questions such as this one. So the question I want to answer is what can not just myself, but every person to live and die decades after my passing is their purpose. The straight answer is you can’t. As of right know, our education system focused on standardized testing and grades so one can't thrive. This makes it difficult for students to meet these goals and simultaneously find their purpose.

Dr. Steve Taylor, a senior lecturer of psychology at Leeds Beckett University, talks about four kinds of purposes. Survival is one. However, with modern convenience this has become almost irrelevant. Another is “Adopting a Pre-Existing Framework of Purpose and Meaning” which can be best categorized into religion (Taylor). Religion often seems as a way to explain the unexplainable. While truth is in that, the world moves into a contemporary time where religion is not as revered as it was before. Personal accumulative, although shied away, is a big source of purpose. Similar to this is altruistic and idealistic purpose. It's being loyal to what matters, it’s a cause you fight for because you believe in it and at the end, despite its success or failure you can look back and say I gave it all I had. They all have a common theme of embodying something we find meaning in or in other words purpose.

Climbing that mountain can be made easier. Professor Andrea Bonior  of Georgetown University states that its not necessarily what generates pleasure but more so satisfaction. The main question to ask yourself is “When are you in the flow?” (Bonior). People have studied this such as Psychologist Mihaly Csizxentmihalyi. When you are really involved in something, you body and identity disappear from the consciousness while you try to concentrate on something big, while simultaneously feeling your existence ( Csizxentmihalyi) . 

The point is that although your purpose in life is vague, it surrounds you and when you grasp it, you will understand. My solution is that every child should be given an opportunity to find their purpose. Children at an early age are quite bright and open minded. This often fades into the monotonous rigor of education designed to churn out STEM and factory workers. However with change, by high school enough exposure to topics of interest, teenagers can be more motivated by a curriculum that caters to their purpose not one that shy's them away. That way people like me aren’t struggling to find their meaning. Opponents will say the government can’t pay for this or that it will be ineffective. To counter, what is the purpose of the government if not to help build a brighter future for mankind. Am I missing something?

Education is something that needs to change. It will require massive amounts of funding but is worth the cost. Teachers especially need more help. Teachers don’t directly change the future, they shape it through their students. Nowadays, teachers are being worked to death and have little strength to really shape that future. With a new curriculum put in place, students will be more evenly distributed, less worked, happy, and easier to teach. Teachers won’t have to worry about students not wanting to be in their class or having to teach multiple subjects. This starts in elementary school when children can shape ideas about their future, career and lifestyle wise. That way when they are teenagers they have an idea of how they want to fulfill this. It'll have economic advantages due to a more diversified economy with more jobs. Social and phycological benefits would keep people motivated and happy which would improve every aspect of life. It’s a win for all involved. The general population will be happier as well as future generations born into this world. 

It’s a lot to think about, however with a change in education, the whole of our country could improve when we stop ignoring purpose and let people find the lives they want to live. 

Annotated Bibliography

Bonior, Andrea. “5 Questions to Help You Find Your Sense of Purpose.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 2018, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/friendship-20/201803/5-questions-help-you-find-your-sense-purpose.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, director. Flow, the Secret of Happiness. TED, 2004, www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow/transcript.

Taylor, Steve. “The Power of Purpose.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 2013, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201307/the-power-purpose.