Thoughts About Purpose(s)

For some reason this afternoon I was remembering a funeral I attended last summer while Jeff was in Italy. A professor in the IP&T department at BYU had been in declining health for some time and passed away on July 1st. I regret that I never took a class from Dr. Inouye, and wanted to share something of what he said regarding our field of study but that certainly applies to life in general:

How should we define Instructional Design and Technology (IDT)? What is the meaning of our discipline? What is the meaning of our profession? A first step toward answering this question would be to determine which of our many goals and purposes is our central, or ultimate, end. What is our central mission and toward what should our efforts be directed? Until we could agree on a central concern, defining our field would be impossible. An inability to define IDT would be unfortunate, indeed, for no other success could compensate for a discipline's failure to understand its fundamental nature and reason for existing. “If one does not know to which port one is sailing,” said Seneca, “no wind is favorable (1969).”

These questions give me a lot to think about.  They remind me of a scripture I love, cited by President Ezra Taft Benson in this talk:

In the final letter recorded in the Book of Mormon from Mormon to his son Moroni, he gave counsel that applies to our day. Both father and son were seeing a whole Christian civilization fall because its people would not serve the God of the land, even Jesus Christ. Mormon wrote, "And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God." (Moroni 9:6.)

When we can point our work and energies towards a purpose, we can accomplish great things.  The trick is to discover what our purpose is, and to have a desire to not rest until we meet it. Mormon points out this need for proper perspective very nicely, I feel, and I hope that I can be able to endure well all that comes my way as I learn what my "labor to perform" truly is.