Editorial July 4, 1988 Issue

How we spend our lives

William E. Moody

Numerous studies and reports have described how the pace of life today can tend to leave people feeling "burned out." Whether a person works in a demanding professional career, on a forty-hour-a-week assembly line, or as a full-time homemaker, the challenges have much in common. After many years on the job, how can someone maintain a sense of purpose, joy, and forward movement about what he or she is doing? Can we be satisfied about the way we're spending our lives rather than just feeling spent, used up?

There are dozens of self-help manuals available, books supposedly revealing all the "secrets of success"—how to get on top and stay there. But most of the time, it seems that something essential is missing. What's the real purpose of it all; where's the real meaning? When so much is centered on one's personal pursuits—focusing on self-interest, self-seeking, self-serving—at some point the self may not be able to hold up under the strain. Eventually it's this self-directed living that hits a dead end.

So, if we've found the "health and wealth" fashion of the 1980s to be lacking something fundamental in purpose and goals, what can we look to? People are still discovering—as they have for centuries—that the Bible offers a dependable guide. It's a powerful book that helps to turn us around from those self-inflicted dead ends. It points the way of steady progress and individual development that can continue throughout our lives.

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