Live With Purpose

                                                         Live With Purpose            



        " Life isn't about finding Yourself. Life is about creating Yourself."       

                                                                                                  :--  George Bernard Shaw














So, how do you use purpose to create an extraordinary ?  Ebenezer scrooge show us how. cold-hearted, penny pinching , and greedy, a man who despised Christmas and all thing that give people happiness, his last name a by word for miserliness and meanness- Ebenezer Scrooge might have been the least likely candidate  to teach us anything about how to live. Yet, in Charles Dicken's 1843 classic A Christmas carol, he does. The redemptive tale of  Scrooge's transforms from stingy, callous, and unloved to considerate ,caring ,and beloved is one of the best examples of how our destinies  are determined by our decisions, our lives shaped by our chooses.

One again, fiction provides us a formula we can all follow to build an extraordinary life with extraordinary results. I'd like to beg your forgiveness, take a little literary literary license, and quickly retell this timeless tale  to show you.

One Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the deceased spirit of Jacob Marley, his former business partner. we do not know if this is a dream of if it's real. Marley wails, "I am here  tonight to warn you, that you have yet a chance and a hope of escaping my fate. you will be haunted by three spirits"- from the past, present, and future, as it turns out . " Remember what has passed between us!

Now, let's stop for a second and bear in mind who Scrooge is. Dickens describes him as a man whose old features are frozen by the cold within him. Tight-fisted, with head down and to the grindstone, Scrooge pays as little as possible and keeps as much as he can. He is  secretive and solitary . No one ever stops him in the streets to say hello. No one cares, for he cares for no one. He is a bitter, mean covetous old sinner- cold to the sight. His life is a lonely existence, and the world is worse  off for it.

Over the course of the evening , the three spirits visit Scrooge to show him his past, present and future. Through these visits he sees how he became the man he is, how his life is currently going, and what will ultimately happen to him and those around him. It's a terrifying experience that leaves him visibly shaken when he wakes the next morning.

Not  knowing whether it was real or a dream, but giddy upon discovering no time has passed, Scrooge realizes there is still time to alter his fate. In a joyous blur, he rushes into the street and instructs the fist boy he sees to go buy the biggest turkey at the market and send it anonymously to the home of his  sole employee, Bob Cratchit. Upon seeing a gentleman he'd once rebuffed for pleading charity for the needy, he prays for forgiveness and promises to donate huge sums of money to the poor.

Ebenezer eventually ends up at the home of his nephew, where he begs forgiveness for being such a fool for far too long and accepts an invitation to stay  for holiday dinner. His nephew's wife and guests , shocked at his heartfelt bliss, can barely believe this is Scrooge.

The next morning , Bob Cratchit, upon arriving noticeably late to work, is confronted by Scrooge: " what do you mean coming here at this of day ? I am not going  to stand for this sort of thing any longer!" Before this wretched news can sink in, the incredulous Cratchit hears him say, " And therefore I am about to raise your Salary!"
Scrooge goes on to become the Cratchit family's benefactor. He finds a doctor for Tiny Tim , Cratchit's invalid son, and becomes like a second  father to him. Scrooge lives out the rest of his days spending his time and money doing everything he can for others.

Through his simple story, Charles Dickens shows us a simple formula for creating an extraordinary life: Live with purpose.  Live by priority. Live of productivity.
As I reflect on this story, I believe Dickens reveals  purpose as a combination of where we're going and what's important to us. He implies that our priority is what we place the greatest  importance on and our productivity comes from the actions we take. He lays out life as a series of connected choices, where our purpose sets our priority and our priority determines the productivity our actions produce.


To Dickens, our purpose determines who we are. Scrooge is transparent and easy to understand, so let's revisit A Christmas Carol through the lens of Dickens's formula. At the place we enter his life. Scrooge's purpose is clearly about money. He pursues a life either working for it or being alone with it. He cares for money more than for people and believes that money is the end by which any means are justified. Based on his purpose, his priority is straightforward : making as much money for himself as he can 

Collecting coin is what matters to scrooge .As a result, his productivity is always aimed at making money. when he takes a break from making it, for fun, he counts it. Earning, netting landing, receiving tallying-these are the actions that fill his days, for he is greedy, Selfish and unmoved by the human condition of those around him. 
BY Scrooge's own  standards, he's highly productive in accomplishing his purpose. By anyone else's it's simply a miserable life.