In this day and age many people are thankful to be gainfully employed and many more would like to be able to provide for their family. In the period from 2007-2010, millions of jobs were lost in the United States alone. Ironically, it was also during this time that many people found themselves reevaluating their life and their life’s work. For example, almost 50% of students in the biomedical courses that I teach are retraining from other industries such as semiconductor, automobile, construction, real estate and defense to pursue a degree in Biomedical Engineering Technology. When asked why, a typical answer is, ‘I wanted to make a positive impact in this world’ or ‘I wanted my work to mean something.’
Such statements inspire me to keep teaching and reveal the heart of the matter. People are more fulfilled when they find purposeful living. Purposeful living, as discussed in my book Spiritual Evolution, is not just a cliché, it describes the ability to not only be able to recognize your calling in life when you find it, but also to have the courage and resourcefulness to pursue it. If I were to ask you, ‘what would you be doing right now if anything was possible and you had the resources to do it?’ I guarantee that most of us would think back to our childmind answers and want to be something exciting like a pilot, astronaut or neurosurgeon. Young children don’t see the world from a limited viewpoint; that is drilled into them by their parents, culture and people who directly influence their thinking.
Purposeful living is finding your strengths and focusing them toward something worthwhile. A recent story I just read in the latest issue of Popular Science is an article on Taylor Wilson, a boy of 14 who was the youngest person to ever create a nuclear fusion reactor. He could have turned this aptitude toward a destructive purpose, but upon the death of his grandmother from lung cancer, he chose another path. He became aware of the shortage of available medical isotopes, such as Technium-99m, used to diagnose many types of cancer and set off to create a reactor that would be portable so that isotopes could be readily made at a hospital rather than have to be flown in, overnight from some remote source such as Canada or Poland.
Taylor, now 17, attends The Davidson Academy in Reno, NV my home town. In order for students to get into Davidson Academy, they have to score in the 99.9% range on a battery of tests from the SAT I to the ACT. Taylor is a star among stars in academic standards. He recently won several international science fair contests for his project (and Patent) on an Anti-terrorism dirty bomb detector. Taylor is only able to accomplish such things with the help and support of his understanding parents, empowering teachers and his tenacious ability to entrain professors, grad students and others to support his growth.
If we change our ideas of education from being taught at a “standardized” level for all minds to ones of engaged, purposeful, empowered learning, think of how many new ‘Taylor Wilsons’ would emerge. If we adults reconsider that our own lives need not be “standardized”, but instead be extraordinary, purposeful and engaging, think of how we can change the world.
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