One of my favorite movies is the movie The Guardian.
It’s about US Coast Guard rescue swimmers. My dad was in the coast guard, and he used to do things like that. So growing up I probably watched that movie at least once a month, and I loved it every time.
I watched it a couple weeks ago.
There’s a scene in which a swimmer is asked what he’s doing at the rescue swimmer academy.
This guy was a state champion swimmer, cocky, acted like he was the best, and he was.
But the jaded instructor, Kevin Costner, asked him one question on a regular basis.
He asked “what are you doing here?”
Answers changed, until one finally settled in.
Coming out of the pool, the swimmer looked over to his instructor.
“I’m here to save lives.”
Jake Fischer knew what he was there for.
Later on, in moments of despair and against all odds, he would remind himself. He’s there to save lives.
It’s one of those movies that I think will always give me a new introspective thought every time I see it.
It’s a reminder that to stay afloat, to keep swimming, I need to remember why I’m here.
The other day I wrote something called “the ramblings of a pondering man.” It was the least coherent thing I’ve ever written. It was lots of ideas on who I want to be one day, how I’ll get there etc. There was a little section I called “purpose.”
I don’t work a career where I’m jumping out of helicopters to save lives, or rushing people into emergency rooms. So it can be a challenge to say my purpose is exactly X or Y. I can feel inadequate, like I’m not doing enough.
When I look at the state of the world, the despair and pain felt on such a mass scale. And I look at my contributions, they feel so minimal.
No matter how hard I try, I won’t be bringing about world peace, or curing famine.
But that’s not going to be my purpose.
So I sat down and I thought about it, what can be my purpose.
I decided my new purpose, for the time being, is to make other people feel important.
My goal in every conversation, is to make the other people feel important.
Not in a fake way, but I want people to leave conversations feeling good.
The way I see it, I won’t save the world, but maybe one of those people will.
Short one today, but if you need a conversation starter, I stole this one from a friend:
“ask yourself if you’d rather go back to the future or the past (for x amount of time) then come back to present time. Which would you choose, and why?”