Purpose in Life A Critical Component of Optimal Youth Development
This volume integrates and makes sense of the growing body of theoretical and empirical research conducted on purpose across the lifespan. It opens with a comprehensive yet detailed discussion of the definitions of purpose most commonly used in stud
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Kendall Cotton Bronk
Purpose in Life A Critical Component of Optimal Youth Development
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Kendall Cotton Bronk Ball State University Muncie USA
ISBN 978-94-007-7490-2 ISBN 978-94-007-7491-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7491-9 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2013946046 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Dedicated to CBB, CJB, and LCJB who imbue my own life with a deep and inspiring sense of purpose.
Foreword
As a human concern, purpose has been around at least as long as any of the world’s great religions or philosophies. Whenever someone asks a deeply searching question such as “why am I here?”, “what’s the reason for my existence?”, “what is my life about?”, or “how can I make the best use of my time on this planet?”, the concept of purpose inevitably arises. Finding purpose in life is a pursuit that links people of all historical epochs, social-cultural backgrounds, economic circumstances, and geographical settings. It is a timeless, universal feature of human experience. Purpose also is an especially timely pursuit, in our day of dynamic global transformation. Technological change, as many commentators have pointed out, is “disrupting” practically every pattern of commercial and social existence. It seems as though nothing can be taken for granted any longer. Vocations that were once highly stable are disappearing, declining, or morphing into barely recognizable versions of their former selves (consider the present directions of journalism, law, medicine, education). Families are becoming dramatically more varied in their compositions as well as in their formation and duration. People are moving away from home communities with ever more expansive horizons in mind; and, in accord with this expansion, friendships and other intimate relations have gone global and virtual, with cell phone conversations replacing face-to-face encounters, social media replacing cell phone conversations, and who knows what replacing social media in the next technological revolution to come. Amidst all this sweeping alteration in everything that anchors a personal identity, it is little wonder that people are looking around for a compass to guide them through life. Purpose is such a compass par excellence— and, predictably, our mass media are full of stories about the value of purpose for success, health, and happiness in these often-perplexing times. Despite the timeless and timely status of purpose as a core element of human experience, the scientific stu
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