Even if you’re not a Jay Z fan, I recommend reading this book. It provides insight into hip hop, inner city living, and obviously the meaning behind his lyrics.

I think you hit the nail on the head with your analogy about seeing ourselves as separate individuals. It’s easy to think life’s sole purpose is to fulfill our personal desires when we see ourselves as disconnected from everything around us. When our intentions are to do something for a higher purpose I think we could argue that happiness is one of many results.

I run my own business as a graphic designer for many reasons, but it wasn’t an intentional path from the start. I love driving my business to higher levels and pushing myself to become a better designer with each creation. I enjoy creating a visual representation of my client’s brand and making sure there’s a purpose behind each one of those designs. I don’t think I have to be a graphic designer to still have those values. But, when it comes to the big picture I think I can use design to change culture- at least that’s my intention with Pushing Beauty. But, again, we can use various tools to reach for higher potentials. And, like you said, there’s something satisfying about doing it for its own sake, and not for my personal satisfaction.

I think there is such a thing as impersonal love – maybe we could call it a spiritual love – the type of love that motivates a person to help a stranger, or to be the best person they can be, without regard for specific benefits. So that means doing things because of love, not doing things that we love. Love is where we come from, not what we want.

So here’s a question – you’re a graphic designer. Do you love it? Why or why not? Is this something that provides you with personal satisfaction? If it contributes to the big picture, how does it?

I think that people do things for all sorts of reasons – security, vanity, status, pleasure, power, love, and the list goes on. One psychologist said there were 9 motivations, which just goes to show it’s way more diverse than either love or happiness.

When we see ourselves as separate individuals, with little to no connection to everything else, then I guess the only logical conclusion is that we should live for our own happiness, which I guess could be defined as the absence of pain. But that sounds really uninspiring to me. It’s a dream without any dimension – without any power to inspire me. I feel like I’d need to unrealize a lot of things for it to make any sense.

So I don’t think all our actions are aimed toward happiness. People put themselves through all sorts of hardships that don’t immediately lead to happiness. I know this is an extreme example, but was Martin Luther King motivated by happiness? Maybe you could say he wanted happiness for all races (although I think there’s a lot more to his vision), but was he personally motivated to experience happiness? Was happiness being put in danger every day while standing up for a cause? What I do think is that he was motivated by an impersonal, universal, love. Not a love for things, or a love for something that he could take for himself, but he was driven by a force of love unattached to anything in particular. He came from love, he didn’t seek it within something or someone.
I think each of us wants a lot of different things which contradict each other. Don’t you think so?
The question then is which part are you responding to? The part that just wants to be comfy and free of pain, leading a private life of happiness which may include time to watch your favorite TV shows, eat your favorite foods, live in a good neighborhood, etc., or the part that wants to grow and reach higher potentials, not for more happiness and pleasure, but for its own sake.

Here’s another post I recently wrote about strategy: http://michelledavella.com/2011/07/why-i-make-things-pretty-with-purpose/

Anyway, would love to see that original post if you still have the link!