A person’s purpose is to be a person. A person’s value is in their personhood.
Whether professionally or personally (as if those could be separate things), the purpose of a person isn’t to become something else, and it definitely isn’t to be an instrument that generates revenue, profits, or productivity.
The purpose of a person is to be the best version of themselves. Now. We need to stop talking about our fellow humans as means to so-called business outcomes (e.g., “happy employees make happy customers,” “happy customers make for more-profitable businesses,” “healthy cultures make more money”).
Business outcomes are just that–outcomes–and they happen when people are satisfied, fulfilled, self-actualized, and flourishing.
Human satisfaction, fulfillment, self-actualization, and flourishing are actually the *point* of businesses, and not the other outcomes (which, I get, are much easier to measure).
In our hyper-financialized world, we tend to think of everything in terms of ROI (return on investment, for anyone who doesn’t speak Acronymese). But the “return” that matters most is human flourishing.
“Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn’t disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into each moment. We don’t value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life’s bounty is in its flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it’s been sung? The dance when it’s been danced? It’s only we humans who want to own the future, too. We persuade ourselves that the universe is modestly employed in unfolding our destination. …Was the child happy while he lived? That is a proper question, the only question.” –Tom Stoppard, from The Coast of Utopia
