the purpose mirage

I read something last week that just went 'boom' in my consciousness. I had fetched the 'Permanence' edition of the Alpine Review from my study and put in on the coffee table in the living room so I could browse in the evening. I was in an unexpectant state of mind, filling in some quiet moments alone before bed when the page fell where Gianpiero Petriglieri was musing about leadership, community and digital roaming. To the unsuspecting, it is an apparently benign statement;

"I'll go .. a little against the grain here. Put people before purpose."

Meaning and purpose have become the holy grail in our worlds of privileged. We wonder whether there is more to life than work and play. We won't take jobs that don't offer us meaning. Even our leisure and travel gets infused with 'meaning' to make us feel better. But in that short sentence I think Professor Petriglieri shouts quietly that it is much more simple than we have made it out to be.

It's all about love. Put people first. Make choices that put others before ourselves and abracadabra, purpose smacks us in the face.