It’s rare enough to find a person who is willing to explicitly define what they want out of life. Most people prefer remaining in the vacuous comfort of not really knowing what they want in life, which protects them from the pain of failing to have it.
Of those with the courage to define what they want from life, most are looking for the shortest possible path to what they want, asking, “What is the minimum I need to do?” The problem with this approach is that great outcomes require great sacrifices—sacrifices whose costs almost always exceed the limits of what someone who does not yet have them imagines possible.
We have a perennial ability to underestimate the cost of outcomes. By the time you find out the true cost of what you seek, it is usually too late to pay it. An uncommon kind of person doesn’t wait for the bill. They proactively ask, “What more can I do?” This person is always doing all they can to achieve what they want. Sooner or later, they will reach a point where anything more they can do is no longer worth the effort it would take, except in one special situation: that of a transcendent purpose.
There are two characteristics that make a purpose transcendent:
- It is recognized as more valuable than anything else.
- Any effort applied to it will result in worthwhile advancement of it.
These two properties make it so very few purposes qualify as transcendent, but those that do always have sufficient justification for doing everything you can to advance them. Nothing short of these properties justify unbounded effort.