People love to have a sense of purpose. They love to focus on training for a marathon, building a house, climbing a mountain, leading a stimulating project or working towards their life goals.
Different people develop a sense of purpose in different ways. Here are some of the routes they may take.
Some may focus on the positive things they want to give to people during their time on the planet.
Some may follow a personal philosophy, a spiritual faith or a sense of vocation.
Some may follow their principles and aim to do work that helps people or the planet.
Some may build on their strengths and do satisfying work that helps people to achieve success.
Some may focus on how they can encourage people and leave a positive legacy.
Buckminster Fuller took this approach at a challenging time in his life. Bearing in mind his strengths, he explored the following themes.
Imagine that you want to focus on the theme of giving things and follow this in your own way. One approach is to go through the following steps.
You can clarify the positive
things you have been given
What are the positive things you have been given in your life? Different people give different answers to this question. Here are some of the things the mention.
The positive things I have
been given in my life have been:
Growing up in a loving home … Parents who encouraged me to follow my interests … Living in different countries as a child … Having stability in the family but the opportunity to learn about different cultures.
Being encouraged to build on my strengths though I was not good at school … Learning how to take charge of my own learning … Travelling on my own as a youngster to follow my football team around the country.
Spending several years in a job I did not like which motivated me to find and follow the work I love … Having a superb mentor in my career … Being given the opportunity to use my skills to help people every day.
Being fortunate in finding my life partner … Learning from our children as they grew up … Having the opportunity to take care of my parents as they grew older … Continuing to learn as I go through life.
If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentences.
You can clarify the positive
things you want to give to people
Imagine that you have described some things you have been given in your life. You may also have reflected on how you have benefited from being given these things.
If you wish, you may want to consider what you want to give to other people during your time on the planet. What could be the benefits of giving these to people?
Different people give different answers when doing this exercise but sometimes they get a realisation. They realise that the things they want to give to others may mirror the things they have been given in life.
Richard St. Barbe Baker, who co-founded The Men of Trees, was somebody who followed this path. His inspired many people to plant trees and contribute towards building a positive planet.
Richard’s epiphany came at a young age. Writing in his book My Life My Trees, he describes how in 1894, at the age of five, he had an unforgettable experience that charted his future path.
After much coaxing, his nurse allowed him to explore the woods by himself. He described what happened in the following way.
No explorer of space probing the secrets of other planets could have felt more exultation that I did at that moment.
Soon I was completely isolated in the luxuriant, tangled growth of ferns which were well above my head. In my infant mind I seemed to have entered a fairyland of my dreams.
I wandered on as in a dream, all sense of time and space lost. I became intoxicated with the beauty all around me, immersed in the joyousness and exultation of feeling part of it all.
I had entered the temple of the wood. I sank to the ground in a state of ecstasy; everything was intensely vivid – the call of a distant cuckoo seemed just for me.
The overpowering beauty of it all entered my very being. At that moment my heart brimmed over with a sense of unspeakable thankfulness which has followed me through the years since that woodland re-birth.
I was in love with life: I was indeed born again, although I could not have explained what had happened to me then.
Richard was a changed person. Returning from his walk in the woods, he found the commonplace things in life had a new beauty.
The bread he ate tasted crustier and more delicious. The grumpy old gardener looked like a favourite uncle. His parents gave him even more affection than they had done the previous day. At least, that was how it seemed.
Twenty-six years later he translated this passion into his life’s work. He visited Kenya in 1920. Enlisting the backing of chiefs and elders, he started a programme that led to planting over one million trees.
He then co-founded The Men of Trees and was invited to speak around the world. After helping President Roosevelt to establish the Civil Conservation Corp, he instigated the Save The Redwoods campaign in California.
He also started the Green Front action group, returning to Africa to develop re-forestation work in the Sahara. During his life Richard is believed to have personally planted many millions of trees.
One of his projects was to help save the Californian Redwoods. After crossing America and seeing the trees for the first time in 1931, he described this in the following way.
It was here that I came upon superb trees representing the supreme achievement of tree growth in the world today. Here it seemed that my search for the beautiful had ended.
This, I decided must be known as the ‘Grove of Understanding’. It was here that I visualised international plays and youth gatherings.
What better setting could there be in which to plan the better world of tomorrow?
Richard set three goals and devoted much of his life to translating these into action. He aimed:
To save the trees for posterity;
To provide a magnificent backdrop where young people could meet and marvel at the beauty of the Redwoods and the planet;
To inspire young people to work together to hand over this legacy to future generations.
Let’s return to the theme of giving positive things to people during your time on the planet. Different aim to give different things. Here are some they mention.
The positive things I want to give to
people during my time on the planet are:
Lots of encouragement … A loving home … Nourishing food … Positive experiences … Helping them to build on their strengths … The chance to do satisfying work … Practical tools they can use to shape a positive future.
Imagine that you want to follow elements of this approach. What may be the positive things you want to give to people? What may be the benefits of giving these things?
If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentence.
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