Purpose for the young, the old and the hurting
If we assume that a life with purpose is only for the people who make the news, we are myopic elitists. Democracy depends on the notion that every human being needs and is capable of defining a purpose for himself or herself. Purpose empowers.
Yet, when I talked to Dr. Vic Strecher, a University of Michigan professor and bestselling author of “Life on Purpose,” one of the sad and disturbing things he told me is that he is seeing an aimlessness and a degree of hopelessness among the young.
Many college teachers, and others who work with young adults — say, people 18 to 28 — will tell you the same these days. They are seeing many more drop outs and incompletes. But, more poignantly — because it could just be that higher education is not serving our kids well — they are seeing an increasing breakdown in mental health and an increase in depression.
Now this is a complicated matter, and I don’t want, in any way, to suggest otherwise.
But I wonder if part of what is going on may be that we are not asking enough of our young people.
If the options are plugging into a corporate model — working in computer programming or in some sort of marketing — or simply rejecting the professional world and traveling, are the choices adequate?
Think of the four elements of purpose I listed last week: intensity, curiosity, independence and service. The country is not really asking our young to be of service.
And yet, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Democrats’ most eloquent investigator of Jan. 6, 2021, says we cannot save the Constitution without two groups: Republicans and young people.
And no less than anthropologist Jane Goodall, who is always on the lecture circuit, reports that she finds a vast hunger in the young to serve and to save the Earth.
Why can’t we build up and out from the Peace Corps and have a National Service Corps, focused on saving our rivers and lakes and cleaning up streets and neighborhoods in our cities?
Service lends purpose, and purpose not only heals but also builds character — the character to control your own time and life to the fullest extent possible.
I don’t think the country asks much of its old people, either. The old are not widely or consistently welcomed in the public schools, for example, where they could be of great use.
I had two interesting conversations with two male friends roughly my age recently about the word “retirement” and the vague and misbegotten concepts behind it.
One said he did not miss his former work, but that he did miss his workplace, colleagues and routines. What he is electing to do is to “retread” — learn an entirely new skill and profession. He is currently swamped but not bored.
The other fellow told me that he finds both the word and idea of “retirement” repugnant. Because, unlike my other friend, he loves his work. “Why would I stop doing something I enjoy and that makes a contribution and go home and sit on my couch?” he asked. This man maintains he will never retire. He will keep swinging the bat as long as he can pick it up.
I know this: An older person with a lifetime of human wisdom and technical knowledge, but without a purpose, a mission, is dead in three to five years. I have seen it happen. Medical problems, vacations and cruises, the “early bird special” and “happy” hour and the daily administration of life: They eat you alive.
A third group of Americans who need renewed purpose are the working poor. I am thinking of folks in Appalachian towns where the factories are no more, and the only jobs are in chain retail and drug stores. I am thinking of people who work in the hospitality industry — hotels and restaurant workers whose work is hard and whose take-home pay is not enough to make the rent and cover groceries. I am thinking of immigrants, who do the work we need done that no one else wants to do.
These folks need a new union movement, one with a heart, guts and soul. One that is not precious, afraid or corrupt.
A lot of things have happened to unions in the past 30 years, with deindustrialization and globalization being the lead factors. A highly organized and well-financed right-wing war on unions is another. But it’s also true that unions lost their way. Too many union leaders got hooked on power, money and meetings that somehow had to happen in Palm Springs.
There hasn’t been a galvanizing union leader on the national level since Walter Reuther, who led the United Automobile Workers for more than two decades until his death in 1970 — progressive but pragmatic and actually acquainted with laborers who work with their hands.
We need a vital union movement in this country. The alternative is reactionary and authoritarian populism.
I have been shadowing Baldemar Velasquez, our nation’s leading agricultural labor leader, for a few months. The next Reuther could learn a lot from him because he links the oppressed and poor person to the fast-food worker. And he links the fate of the small farm worker to the small farmer. In Poland, they once called that approach “Solidarity.” The linkage is meant to form a chain, and an alliance, of human decency. It’s not about entitlement or complaint but dignity and self-reliance — workers finding purpose in their work.
I would like to see Sherrod Brown run for president one day on his platform of the “dignity of work,” and solidarity with your brother and sister worker, even if you have to pay more for the jeans or jacket made in America.
I’d like to see a new Reuther, too: A union leader who recognizes that labor can give purpose.
Purpose empowers. And solidarity once changed the world as it could again.