I recently listened to Julia Louis Dreyfuss interview Jane Goodall. Julia asks Jane how it feels to be 90 and Jane says, “Well, I know what my mission on this planet is. Right now, it’s to bring people hope. I travel 300 days a year because I believe that, if we don’t have hope, we won’t be able to save this planet.” In an especially touching part, Jane reveals that her favorite animal is a dog (not chimps, as we might suspect) but that she doesn’t have one because her travel schedule won’t allow it. This is the exact oppositive of the “I deserve it so I’m going to treat myself” mentality that pervades so much of Western culture, especially in retirement circles. Retiring from work often means retiring from purpose.
Jane’s not spending her time researching supplements, complaining about aches and pains, bemoaning that she can’t go on wilderness expeditions anymore, online shopping, or trapped on a small screen. She’s following her purpose. Still, at 90. And maybe especially at 90.
And I can’t help but ask myself, “What would I travel 300 days a year for?”
At 50, I’m clear that I don’t have just one purpose or passion. I have many. Being a fiercely loving mother and partner, knowing and befriending the trees in my neighborhood, helping organizations heal, supporting leaders as they make the world a better place, showing up in a truthful, loving way to all my relationships, cooking good food, reading and writing, siding with the oppressed in every way I can. I don’t have the dramatic stories of life in the Serengeti like Jane does or the speaking invitations that have followed as a result, but I want to keep paying attention to my life purpose in the way she does. I want to really live until I die.
My quote of the year (that I’m sure I’ve repeated here several times) comes from my massage therapist: “You get what you’re open to.” We don’t have to track down or wrangle our life purpose(s). We don’t have to be colonizing or aggressive about it like so many of the self-help books and influencers out there whose metaphors tend toward climbing mountains or vanquishing enemies. We can instead say a little prayer:
Universe, I’m declaring myself open. I’m open to surprise. I’m open to discomfort. I’m open to joy. I’m open to being so connected to this earth and its inhabitants that I don’t see myself as separate from them. When the tips of the old Red Cedar near my house turn brown because of the hot summer, I suffer. When the troubled homeless person yells obscenities into the air, I suffer. But I don’t stay there. I let that suffering move through me. I turn it into action. I’m not always sure what those actions should be, but I’m open. Each day, may I tune into what my purpose on this earth is. May it make me as convicted as Jane Goodall, as courageous as Martin Luther King, as loving as Mother Teresa, as joyful as the Dalai Lama. May I become more and more myself as I open more and more to my purpose, however that changes throughout my life.
Thank you for the hope and inspiration, Jane. I hope we take the torch you are passing to us.