What a pleasure it is to be here today.
I want to share with you, start by sharing one of my favorite historical stories.
It’s the story of Joan of Arc.
Joan of Arc, an amazing girl, 17 years of age, back in the mid-1400s –
think about that, even in itself.
Profound –
she led the French armies to liberate a key city
that was required to coronate their uncrowned king.
This was during the Hundred Years’ War, between Britain and France.
Because of this event,
she became a heroine to all the people of France
and through many generations of time, including me, today.
Later, there was a faction that actually captured her
and turned over to the British.
At that point, she was tried and condemned to death by fire.
There was a play later written in her life
about this experience, when she was burnt at the stake.
In the play,
the actress portraying Joan makes this statement,
and I want you to listen carefully to the words of this:
“Every man gives his life for what he believes.
Every woman gives her life for what she believes.
Sometimes, people believe in little or nothing.
And yet, they give their lives to that little or nothing.
One life is all we have to live.
And we live it as we believe in living it,
and then it is gone.
But to surrender what you are
and live without belief
is more terrible than dying.
Even more terrible than dying young.”
I love that quote.
It makes you start to ask questions about yourself, doesn’t it?
It makes you ask the question:
what am I giving my life to?
Or another way to state it:
what is my life purpose?
It was in this mindset
that I had an experience happen to me as a young father.
I was unemployed at the time.
No money to pay the bills, struggling just to keep up.
I was discouraged, depressed, losing hope.
In this state, I learned about a neighbour of mine
who required surgery, open-heart surgery.
He didn’t have any family in the region,
so he was required to go, by himself, he and his wife, and have the surgery.
And I thought,
“I am unemployed, doing nothing;
I can give myself to help out.”
So I went and I sat with the wife during the surgery.
Several hours went by,
and during that time I remember focusing on my situation,
how my needs were struggling,
how I was letting down my family.
The doctor came in after several hours
and reported back that the surgery was a success.
And about an hour after that,
we were invited to go back and see him.
I was a little surprised since I wasn’t family,
but I remember walking past the nurses station.
And into that room,
all those dozens of machines, tubes, cables connected to him,
the beeps, the sounds.
I was amazed.
But then I noticed something.
He was focused on me.
As I walked over to the bed, he grabbed my hand.
Being unable to speak because of the tubes in his throat,
he expressed clearly to me
his appreciation and his love for me being there.
My life changed, that day.
And from that moment it was my first discovery
into something I refer to as the progression of purpose.
Let me share that with you.
The progression of purpose starts with needs,
it progresses to wants,
and then graduates to legacy.
Let me take you through each of these.
If my needs are not being met,
where is my focus, where is my energy, where is everything that I do?
It’s on me, isn’t it?
Because if my needs are not met, nothing else matters.
But once those needs are met, what happens?
I start to look around and I see what everybody else has.
And I start to become dissatisfied with my life
because people have more.
And I graduate it or come to this phase here, of wants,
thinking that there’s some age,
some car, some title, some income level
that will make me happy.
See, because deep inside each of us,
there is rooted this drive or this desire
to find purpose, to find meaning, to find joy in life.
And if we are not attaining it,
we pursue it,
whether it was in needs,
whether it is in wants,
we start looking, we fight,
and we are trying to figure out what it is that can deliver that.
Several years ago, I helped a family relocate here from California.
They sold their small two-bedroom house in California for a lot of money.
They took that cash, brought it to Idaho
and bought a five-bedroom, three-bath home,
new construction, three-car garage, bought a new car, put it in there,
new furniture: they were living the life!
A couple of months later, I called them to see how they were doing.
The wife made this comment to me, she said:
“Steven, I thought this would make me happy.”
She discovered a very important truth.
There is no thing,
no title,
no acquisition
that can suffice or deliver that burning desire inside each of us,
that we have to find that purpose, meaning and joy!
History is filled with famous people,
rich people, who buy their very lives define what the rest of us are pursuing.
But how many of them are accented by depression,
divorce,
drug overdoses, even suicide?
Things will never deliver
purpose, meaning and joy.
But then, there are those
that graduate to our legacy,
a legacy of service, of serving other people.
And think about it in your own life.
Think about a time when maybe you visited a next door neighbor who was a widow,
or helped somebody push their car out of the snow –
we had a lot of opportunities this last winter.
Or maybe even as simple as holding a door for somebody.
Some act of kindness
that had no desire or intention of reciprocity,
getting something back for that action.
How did it make you feel?
See, when you go back and look each of these,
under needs: who is my focus on?
It’s me, isn’t it?
Under wants, where is my focus?
Selfishly, again on me.
As I try to find that solution
to purpose, meaning and joy.
Isn’t it a paradox
that to find that internal purpose, meaning and joy in life, for me –
if I will give up thinking about me and think about others –
it will come.
It will come!
And not only then.
My grandfather was a man of little means.
He drove a simple car, had a simple job, lived in a simple home.
But there was something about his life that changed generations.
He cared about other people first.
If there was a service project in the community,
guess who was first to be there?
My grandfather.
Every time I was around him, I felt like a million dollars.
In speaking to my cousins and other people,
they felt the same way.
Why? Because he gave himself to others first.
And by so doing he became immortal in his legacy
to me and to my family.
See, as we graduate,
and we become legacies of service in our own lives,
we join the greats of history,
like Joan of Arc,
like my grandfather.
Like Mother Teresa, who said,
“I myself may not be able to change the world,
but I can throw a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”
What if we in this very room,
today,
began to create a legacy,
a legacy of service?
Is it possible
that we could change our lives and find that purpose, meaning and joy?
Is it possible we could change the community?
Is it possible that we could change the world?
Let’s follow the counsel of Goethe, the great German philosopher:
Begin this very day,
whatever you can do or dream you can do.
Begin it!
Boldness has power, genius and magic in it.
Only engage and the mind grows heated.
Begin, and then the task will be completed.
When you say, “I will,”
it sends out sparks into the Universe
and sends to you whatever is you need.
Now, let me take you back again to the mid-1400s.
It’s now you, tied to the stake.
What would you declare about your life,
in your final moments?
Look deep into your heart.
What are you giving your life to?
(Applause)
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