MUHAMMAD, MARYUM AND THE PURPOSE

 

If you are a devoted boxing fan, like me, you will know who Mohammed Ali was; If you are not, you will also know it, because Ali is undoubtedly one of the icons of the 20th century, someone whose notoriety transcended the ring by far, and never left anyone indifferent.

Mohammed was fond of recording the telephone conversations he had with his inner circle, and some are preserved today. There is one in which he asks his young daughter, Maryum, something very simple, but which at the same time has enormous significance:

"Maryum, what is your purpose?"

I think Ali knew what his was, and he also knew that that purpose went beyond his sports career, was independent of it and was not even affected by a professional finish that was very little to the height of his greatness. It wasn't the packaging that mattered, but the contents did.

In any case, it is not my intention to speak of the purpose of Mohammed Ali, but of yours that are reading or mine that am writing, and I recognize that I have launched myself into it without thinking too much, without a very deep previous analysis, but the subject seemed so vitally important to me that I could not resist.

I believe that purpose is something that goes far beyond our actions, ambitions, goals or achievements. It includes all that, it is true, in the same way that it encompasses our human relationships, our emotions and our feelings, but I think it is something way bigger.

Stating the personal purpose would be for me something like the declaration of what we are going to mean to the world, it would designate everything that will be here when you leave and was not here when you came ... what we donate after we are gone and its influence. A firm, voluntary and active acceptance of what General Máximo says in his harangue from the movie "Gladiator": "What we do in this life echoes in Eternity".

The truth is that everything that surrounds us has a purpose, as Mohammed tells Maryum: "If the cows, the stars, the sun ... everything that God has created has its purpose, you must also have yours." And this is independent of whether our approach is religious or not, whether we are bad or good or whether the starting point of our creeds is more or less transcendent, because it is evident that everything has a purpose, a mission. And a gift, which is the transcendence of what we do, which reaches far after us, stretches to the physical space that we cannot see and the time that we will…never see.

I think it is important to make a technical stop here, because it would not be strange for the reader to think that I am referring to the existence of a universal plan designed by something much bigger than ourselves and in which everything that exists has neither the capacity for choice nor decision power. Not so, or not at all.

It is real that we are part of a miraculous network in which we fulfill a task through which we can mean something in a place that is far away and a moment that will escape us one day, but it is not true that we cannot decide the what and the how. Will and freedom of choice are gifts that have been made available to us as a mechanism to decide what role we are going to play in this plan. That is why Mohammed asks his daughter, because unlike the stars, the sun and the cows, she can answer, and tell him, in an explicit exercise of will, what she wants to be and what she wants to mean.

To have a purpose you don't have to be Mohammed Ali, you don't have to be a World Heavyweight Champion or a world-renowned struggler for what you believe in. The purpose does not come in scales, nor in packages of different sizes. The little beetle has a purpose, as does the fabulous Amur tiger; Plankton has it, as does the Great White. You have it, as Churchill did. I have it, as Velázquez, Trajano, Elvis, Henry Ford, Marie Curie, Newton or Mother Teresa had it. And the fact that some are overwhelmingly spectacular does not belittle the rest. First, because not all purposes can be of Herculean dimensions, or there would be no beetles that would favor the growth of the plants that feed the gazelle that makes the tiger possible; but secondly and fundamentally, because we can, at our scale, continue their purpose or be inspired by it to configure ours. Because what they left behind, their purpose, was given to all of us, they delivered it to the world, which is something we can also do.

Not all of us sit at the table of life with the same cards, true, but that does not prevent us from being protagonists of our lives through a purpose. We all know that there are footballers who play the ball wonderfully and have excellent technique, but end up meaning little in a match, while others who are not so technically or physically gifted have a tremendous influence on the game. It's not what you are able to do, it is what your role in the pitch is going to end up meaning.

Having a purpose, or rather being aware of it, is also helpful. Failed ambitions, unexpected changes, broken projects, painful losses ... become more understandable when we are able to frame them in something bigger, when we are able to dissociate them from who we are. Because in the end, having what you have, keeping it, the achievements that fill you or making plans depends a lot on you, but it is still limited, while the choice of who you are is full and unlimited. You are not what you have, what you plan or what you achieve, you are yourself, a person who sets in motion the spring of his freedom to choose precisely who he is.

By the way, Maryum's response to her dad was: "Help others"