The Power of Purpose: Living Well by Doing Good

Finding our purpose in life is an important goal and priority. Not just because it's something nice to do, but also because much of our health, wellness and success depends upon it. This is one of a growing group of books showing that the dog-eat-dog mentality that has typified many inter-personal relationshps and business ventures is neither necessary nor desirable. Competition is certainly no bad thing, but ruthlessly trampling others is rarely likely to be of any benefit to anyone. I say this as someone who was raised and trained in an aggressively hyper-competitive environment in which we were all expected to behave in the same way. It took me many years and a change of continent to break out of that pernicious mindset. This is a book that could easily have sprung from Eastern traditions of Karma and causality, or the early days of the American self-help movement, quite correctly making a strong argument for the practicality of altruism. Yet this is not a self-help book in the normal sense of the term, for it inverts the normal idea that self-help is simply a matter of self-advancement at the expense of others. I am quite sure that the fundamental premise - that helping others is the most reliable path to helping yourself - is true, not just in business and personal life, but at more fundamental levels of the Universe. The essential connectedness that appears not just to be a characteristic of rare quantum interactions, but instead a feature of our day-to-day world, provides powerful support for this idea. Peter Temes explores an apparently simple idea: how do people perceive me, and how do I perceive them? And then the next step: how can I help others express their full potential? Aristotle and Lao Tzu both considered that happiness is not something lurking in some hidden corner of our minds, but is instead a result of doing good in the world. This is an eminently practical book about finding your own power and for centering your relationships with other people. I had not previously read anything by Peter Temes, but I shall do so now. Highly recommended. Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life