A Brick and a Purpose

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Today I'm looking into the deeply human need we have for purpose. What does it really mean to live a meaningful life? And why do we sometimes feel so lost without it? 

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Episode Transcript

Richard (00:00):
And hello to you.
It's bonus episode day.
Something short and sweet, but Ihope meaningful.
I've been thinking a lot aboutpurpose lately.
Not in that big life definingway necessarily, but in the
small quiet sense of it.
The kind that gets you outta bedin the morning makes you feel

(00:22):
like you're not just treadingwater.
Because the truth is purposeisn't always loud.
It doesn't have to be aboutcuring diseases or writing
novels.
Sometimes it's just aboutknowing that something you do,
anything, makes a differenceeven if it's only to you.

(00:45):
And that brings me onto a storyI wanted to share, a true story
and a powerful one.
It's about a man named EugeneHeimler.
Heimler was a Hungarian Jew, andduring the second World War, he
and his entire family weredeported to Auschwitz and his
family were murdered, and he waskept alive for one of the

(01:06):
Nazi's, so-called experiments.
Now, this wasn't the kind ofexperiment you'd want to
survive.
It wasn't about medicine, itwasn't curing anything.
It was about hopelessness.
The Nazis wanted to see whatwould happen if you forced
people to do somethingcompletely and utterly pointless

(01:29):
every single day?
Would it break them?
Would they give up?
So they made this group ofprisoners dig a hole at one end
of the camp and then carry allthe soil to the other end where
they'd dig another hole.
And bury it.
And then repeat again and again,backwards and forwards day after
day.

(01:50):
Nothing would ever come of it.
No goal, no end.
Just meaningless repetition.
Under armed guard.
And of course it did breakpeople.
That despair that it created,the futility of it all got too
much and lots of the prisonerswere throwing themselves at
electric fences and provokingthe guards hoping to be shot.

(02:12):
Because if nothing you domatters, then what's the point
in surviving.
But Heimler found something, asmall, almost silly thing, but
it saved him.
One day while digging, he cameacross a broken brick, just a
scrap of something, and he andanother prisoner made a
decision.

(02:32):
This brick would be their secretmission.
Every time they moved soil inthe wheelbarrow, they'd make
sure that this brick always saton the top of the pile.
Always on the top, alwaysunnoticed by the guards.
Now, I know that sounds a bitridiculous, doesn't it?
But it gave them something tofocus on, something that felt

(02:54):
like it mattered, even if it wasonly in their minds, it gave
them control in a place whereeverything had been taken from
them.
And they made it into a game.
They would time the journey.
They would estimate the angle ofthe brick on the top of the
rubble and stuff.
They would do little mentalcalculations, anything to stay

(03:14):
mentally active, but it allhinged on that brick.
And that to me is one of themost profound examples of
purpose I've come across.
Because what Heimler learned isthat purpose doesn't have to be
big.
It doesn't have to change theworld.
It just has to keep you going.
And that was enough to save hislife.

(03:36):
And later on he became apsychotherapist himself.
He used that experience to helpothers find their own sense of
meaning, especially wheneverything felt hopeless.
So if today feels a bit flat, ifthis week feels a bit heavy,
maybe ask yourself, what's yourbrick?

(03:58):
'cause it doesn't have to bedramatic.
Maybe it's just checking in onsomeone.
Maybe it's walking the dog orplanting something in the garden
or making a Spotify playlist fora mate.
Purpose is anything that says,this is why I do what I do.
And it doesn't need to impressanybody.

(04:19):
It doesn't need applause.
It just needs to feel real toyou.
And, if you can find even onesmall reason to keep going, one
tiny brick to carry with you,that might be enough to get you
through the day, and that's awin.
So I'll leave you with thatthought.
Keep hold of your brick even ifit is just metaphorical, in

(04:40):
fact, especially if it is to befair.
You take care of yourself andI'll speak to you again soon.
See ya.