From “Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most” by Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz
What is the shape of flourishing life? It’s what we’ve called the Question.
The effectiveness question pushed you to find reliable strategies to get wherever you happened to be going. The self-awareness question pointed you to your orienting vision of a good life, your compass. The self-transcendence question, in contrast, asks you about the validity of that vision. Is your vision of a good life – that vision of the life you want for yourself, your community, and your world – true? Is what you see as a good life in fact true life? Does your compass point to true north – or is it leading you astray?
In other words: Is the life you’re after really worth pursuing? How could you know? On what basis could you make such a determination? What or who is so worth pursuing that it makes plain the worthiness of all else in a life organized around pursuing it?
When we reach this layer, the self is no longer at the center of our quest. Our desires are no longer the criteria for what matters. We are no longer the heart of the matter. In fact, quite the opposite: this question aims to push us out of the center. It invites – maybe even demands – self-transcendence.
At these depths, we can easily begin to lose our bearings. Here, the question is no longer about our institutions or desires. Here, the question is about truth. This is unfamiliar territory for most of us. Indeed, the effectiveness and self-awareness questions often pose as strategies for no longer having to wrestle with questions of truth. They suggest that we instead ask whether we are effectively getting what we really want and then be done with it.
But then that nagging question comes back to us again. Is what we want worth wanting?