One Sunday morning a religious school teacher asked her class to share what they wanted to be when they grow up. Naturally she received the normal panoply of professions called out from every child – “I want to be a doctor,” “I want to be a lawyer,” “I want to be a teacher.” Everyone in the class that is, except one little boy – Tommy, who sat quietly in the back of the room saying nothing.
So being an observant teacher she went back to Tommy and asked, “Tommy, what do you want to be when you grow up? “Possible,” answered Tommy. “Possible?” the teacher asked. “Yeah,” said Tommy, “my mom is always telling me that I’m impossible. So when I grow up I want to be, possible.”
Isn’t that what all of us want at any age? To embrace the possible in our lives? To feel gratitude for all that we have been given, and all the possibilities that our ours yet to come?
In fact, isn’t this what life itself is all about? The Possible. This moment and every moment in your life is a moment filled with endless possibilities for all that you can do, all that you can be today, tomorrow, every day. Who you can become, the lives you can touch, the things you can do and say, the miracles you can create in your own life is forever the possibility of finding your life purpose. As part of the baby boomer generation who recently transitioned from Senior Rabbi to Rabbi Emeritus at my own synagogue I think of the millions of Americans who every day are going through their own life transitions in similar ways. This is what moments of transition are all about - opening us up to the endless possibilities of who we can be and what we can become.
Reverend Robert Schuller, former televangelist extraordinaire and pastor of the famous Crystal Cathedral was perhaps best known for his inspiring book called “Possibility Thinking.” He used to stand up in the middle of his Crystal Cathedral with thousands of congregants in attendance and millions more watching live on television. Week after week he would challenge them all with this simple question: “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”
So what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? What great dreams would you dream? What incredible visions might you have? Where would you put your energy if you knew you could not fail? Would you build the world’s largest homeless shelter? Create a business empire? Figure out how to feed the millions of Americans who this day and every day are experiencing food insecurity? Or start a non-profit that brings clean water to every village in Africa, since according to the World Health Organization the number one cause of death among children across the world is simply dirty water? Indeed, what would you do if you knew you could not fail?
After forty years of being a rabbi, I have noticed that often it isn’t until people get close to the end of their lives that they begin asking themselves questions about the things that matter most in their lives. And it seems that the people who have the most trouble with their own death are those who doubt whether they have done anything worthwhile with their lives so that their lives truly matter.
I believe it isn’t death itself that frightens people the most, it’s insignificance. What have I done to make a difference in the world? Whose lives have I touched? What legacy am I leaving behind? Albert Schweitzer once said, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: The only ones among you who will be happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” Indeed, that really is the secret to creating a life of meaning. Finding out how to serve. For the 10,000 people in the baby boomer generation who are retiring in America every single day this is perhaps the most significant spiritual challenge that we can undertake – to find our life purpose, again - that which excites us, inspires us, fulfills us, as we embrace this new stage of life.
Asking the question, “How do I make my life significant?” is the same for each of us, regardless of our stage of life – whether our transition is from childhood to adulthood, student to full time career, confronting an empty nest as our children grow up and move out on their own, or transitioning from one career stage to the next. I believe that every single person on Earth has his or her own unique life purpose. Every one of us is a one-of-a-kind never to be repeated human being. Each of us with our own unique talents and destiny, each of us with our purpose for being in this world.
Washington Irving said, “Great minds have purposes, little minds having wishes.” So ask yourself, “If, like Moses who discovered his life purpose in a burning bush, God were speaking to me directly, what would God want me to do with my life?” The way I see it, God’s job is to give you life one day at a time, and your job is to make that life matter.
Toward the end of his life, George Bernard Shaw was asked by a reporter, “If you could live your life over and be anybody in the world, now or anybody from history, who would you be?” Shaw thought for a moment, and then he said, “I would choose to be the man George Bernard Shaw could have been, but never was.” I believe that everyone of us is challenged to do exactly the same – to be the person we are meant to be, this year and every year.