Coffee Contemplation: Becoming Who You Are

From Maslow to Marlow and the Ikigai Journey.

Audio narration by David Marlow

Reimagined image by David Marlow from an original photo by Thirdman

You Are Here For a Reason

“The purpose of life is to discover your gift; the work of life is to develop it;

and the meaning of life is to give your gift away.”

David Viscott

Audio transcript-

David Marlow: [00:00:00] For this week's Coffee Contemplation, I want to talk about the idea of you are here for a reason. There's a reason that you are on this earth.

Author David Viscott describes it this way. “The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The work of life is to develop it, and the meaning of life is to give your gift away.”

Now, there is an interesting thing about that quote from Viscott which I love by the way, it’s one of my favorites. It's one of the early ones that I latched onto with the idea of Ikigai. Becasue of that I got the book that that's from and read it. Ironically enough, that's about the only gem in that entire book.

But it is a gem, and it is crucial. I'm going to read it again.

“The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The work of life is to develop it. And the meaning of life is to give your gift away.”

When you do, When you understand [00:01:00] it, when you discover it, I, I prefer the word uncover, but let's go with the quote from Viscott.

When you discover it and you develop it and then you give it away to others, suddenly life becomes richer and perhaps paradoxically easier. Our life becomes easier when we're actually doing what we are called to do.

Let's explore this idea a little further. Abraham Maslow, the creator of the famous hierarchy of needs pyramid had this to say about living out your purpose.

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self actualization. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.”

Again, that's Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality. What a [00:02:00] person can be, they must be. Let's think about that for a minute. What a person can be, they must be.

Now, Marlow, not Maslow, would say it this way.

This need we may call self-actualization; this tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more who we already are.

Who one already as in our Ikigai. It is born in us to be who we were created to be. We don't have to discover it, we don't have to make it, we don't have to create it. Our mission, our quest, and our purpose are to uncover it and live it out in all that we do.

And that's why I emphasize the three circle Venn.

I have the picture there at the bottom. The Who, What, and Why of Ikigai, I call it. Instead of the four circle Venn that you see a lot, because that's career-focused, what Ikigai is really about is who, who you are at your deepest essence, why you're here, your purpose, and then what you're [00:03:00] doing, and doing that in harmony with those other two things, who you are and why you're here.

Our mission, our quest, and our purpose are to uncover and live ourselves out in all that we do. That's your Coffee Contemplation for the week.

Our mission, our quest, and our purpose are to uncover and live it out in all we do.