The Greatest Paragraph Ever Written

The best paragraph ever? It could be this one:

"When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be." – Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras, 2nd Century BCE

That's right. This was written 2,200 years ago! Until I read it, I was prejudiced against the past. I used to believe that the people of today were so much smarter than people of yesterday. No more. Profound wisdom, obviously, is not new.

When we are inspired by ANY purpose, our lives improve. When we are inspired by a GREAT purpose, our lives are electrified. We're more motivated. We see things that were always there but never noticed. We're able to do things we were reluctant to even try. We learn what we're capable of achieving – usually a lot more than we thought we could achieve.

The lesson here is simple yet critical – have a great purpose. Anyone without one should make finding their great purpose their great purpose. There may not be an enormous cost to not having one. But there is an enormous benefit to having one.

What's yours?