January 19, 2011

The Meaning of Life - Illustrated

How would you draw the meaning of life?

The question probably raises eyebrows.  Can we even know the meaning of life?  If we can know it, isn't it surely something too abstract or personal to ever illustrate in a picture?

Maybe.

Last March, I spent two days at Panera Bread, hunched over an Asiago Cheese bagel and a limitless supply of fresh hazelnut coffee, grappling with the question of what I was supposed to do with my life.  What end was I to pursue?  How could I have the best chance of working at something that would not be a waste of my life?  Should I pursue greatness?  If so, what did this look like?

This soul-searching produced the following picture:


Based upon one of Aesop's fables, Jim Collins explains the "Hedgehog Principle" in his excellent book "Good to Great".  In a nutshell, a fox attempts to capture and eat a hedgehog using a myriad of different cunning schemes.  At each attack, the hedgehog simply curls into a spiky ball, and waits for the fox to go away.  The fox is frustrated in every brilliant, unique attempt by this one, simple defense.  The moral of the story is that the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.  

Collins goes on to suggest that organizations center their activities at the intersection of the activities that they are passionate about, that they can be world-class at, and that drive their economic engine.  Collins calls this "the Hedgehog Concept".

Using a curious combination of the prayer, the Gladiator soundtrack, asiago, and hazelnut, I translated this concept into my own personal hedgehog concept.  Christ died for our sins and called us from slavery to sin to slavery to God. By faith, we live under God’s authority and do His will, stewarding God’s gifts, expecting that God will reward us with heavenly treasures and provide daily bread.

Passion, Excellence, and Reward.  If we pursue these things, and center our lives upon Christ's work, I believe that we will find at the end of our race that we have not wasted our lives.