My 5-year-old Katie taught me a very important lesson
When we were kids, there were no many focuses, goals that we’re trying to achieve. We were born happy but out of sudden you grew unhappily. There must be something wrong in the process that makes you far away from the default setting: Happy ON!
It’s likely the same situation when you buy a new smart phone: it works well when you take it out of the box, but a few weeks later you install bad and heavy applications and the battery life starts to dwindle.
Two year back, I woke up on a Saturday morning around 8am and saw some superman climbing up the multi-paned window. It was my daughter who was almost 5. I was little shocked and jumped out of bed bring her down. And here is the conversation following that mades me stunned but enlightened:
Me: Katie, do you know climbing that high very dangerous?
Katie: But I am spider man. Spiderman can climb.
Me: Why do you think that? You are a girl who should not climb!
Katie: I want to be strong, I want to fight against the bad and save the innocent.
Me: Do you? … (and I choke on my reply)
There is a simple but important lesson here I’ve learned that everyday you add in non-essential things into your life and hence you become more aggressive with more achievements. This is not more with less but more with many more. And by doing that, you also become confused with what you want to do or to be. Ultimately, it gradually fades in what you wished to do in the childhood when you grow up.
It is not the life that ruins your dream. It is also not the what you were way too obsessed to become in your childhood that disappears. But it is the why, the sense of purpose, that you forgot and made you mediocre or even bad person to survive through the modern society.
“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.” — Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Stop thinking for a second (or more if you need) and then try to find out why you do what you are doing, in other way, find a purpose. Connecting the childhood’s dream with what you have today, you will live more fulfilled and happily again.
If you used to wish to be a spider man (what) like Katie, keep living with the purposes behind that symbolic idol, you will find yourself somewhere closer to the extend where you can change the world somehow into a better place. And I think it’s gonna be fine if you become an ant-man or someone else having the same why.
Stay naive with your dream (why) and make it stick around on what you are doing, you will live purposely and happily even if the original dream never comes true.
Lastly, I would like to wrap this up with the lovely quote that had been shared by our COO at Cinnamon AI during his time at P&G. You probably see that having a purpose at work will help you achieve many more things from inside out:
The Power of the Waterwalkers
1. Waterwalkers see themselves as in charge of their own business; swimmers think they work for someone else.
2. Waterwalkers think “How can I proactively change the game?”, swimmers think “How do I deliver my workplan.”
3. Waterwalker focuses energy on how to overcome issues and deliver; swimmers blame other functions/”the market”/their assignment.
4. Waterwalkers measure themselves on the impact they have on their business; swimmers measure themselves on how hard they work (number of hours, number of pages).
5. Waterwalkers see themselves as owners of the whole BRAND; swimmers think they are just in charge of Marketing.
Thanks Katie for the lesson and thank you for reading!
Have a good week ahead and turn your HAPPY mode ON!
