My Three Reasons for Starting Purposely

[This is the story of the start-up and app Purposely™. Each week I’ll chat about its purpose, progress, and possibilities. Let’s consider this the memoir of an app <smile>. If you’d like to be in touch, please drop me a line to [email protected]. And please take a peek at my latest book, Choose Your Life Purposes, which spells out the principles upon which Purposely is built.]

Last week, I mentioned that I had three reasons for embarking on this app journey. Here they are.

The first reason is novelty. I know how to write a book, having written fifty or sixty of them. I don’t know how to create a start-up or an app. I know how to work alone. I only vaguely know how to collaborate. I know how to run a small business and have been doing some version of that for fifty years. I don’t know how to create or run a big business. All of this is new to me—which is a big plus. “New” has been needed in my life for some time, as I have been repeating many things to the point of staleness. Several of the things I have been doing are past their expiration date, and so new is not only a good thing but a big deal. Reason one: novelty.

The second reason is that it has value. I’m sure of that. I believe that my ideas matter and can help people. It is a bit of pleasant irony that a book I have coming out this September, called Choose Your Life Purposes, is an entry in the publisher’s new imprint called “Books That Save Lives.” I do think that the ideas which constitute the raison d’etre for the app will save lives. I’ve recently been floating the phrases “psychological catastrophe” and “psychological collapse.” That may be hyperbole—but only barely. People are breaking, hurting, collapsing. I am positive that the app Purposely can and will help them. Reason two: value.

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The third reason is scalability. I have always wanted to reach lots of people. That isn’t quite the same thing as egotism, narcissism, grandiosity, or arrogance—it’s a bit purer than that. I’ve persistently thought that I was on the right track with my thinking: about our confusion about meaning, about the prevalence of authoritarianism in the family, about the difference between life purpose and life purposes, about the illegitimacy of the current “diagnose and treat” mental disorder paradigm, about the dangerousness of religion and the happy home it provides for fascists, etc. I have always thought that these ideas were both right and valuable. So, I’ve wanted to share them with others: with lots of others. Might not a popular app do just that? Reason three: scalability.

There you have it. Novelty, value, and scalability. Sounds like a slogan, don’t you think?

[Purposely is slated to appear November, 2024.]

Go on a Journey Towards Personal Growth and Unlock Your Life’s Purpose

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