Ethics of Purpose Pathways

Earlier this week I ran Part II of Purpose Pathways with a person that I connected with in Colorado, and it went really well. I felt alive and purposeful as we aimed to notice how the universe works to satisfy his purpose both moment to moment and in the long term. Part I was Purpose Identification (where he derived a one sentence purpose for himself), and this session was Purpose Implementation.

Afterwards, I had an interesting conversation with somebody I love relating to “who’s qualified to give advice to someone on how to live their life”. Firstly, I don’t think anybody is qualified.

My loved one expressed fear regarding people that find themselves in a position of influence without ever having asked themselves this or having set bounds for themselves in this regard.

I believe my two most core values to be wonder and wisdom - wisdom being the reason I would have a hard time ever telling somebody they “should” do anything. Firstly, “should” is a cognitive distortion (or so it is taught by some number of licensed therapists). Secondly, how could I ever know with certainty if one future outcome would be better than another when I don’t know the future and when we have different definitions of the word, “better”?

Throughout Purpose Pathways sessions I pull lessons from many different quotes, stories, metaphors, and at least a dozen different books, often re-stating, “there are no rules, you do whatever you want”. Someone once asked me to tell them what to do, and I refused, saying, “I will only tell you what I believe has the greatest chances of helping you accomplish what seems to me to be thing that you want to accomplish.”

Anyway - is it ethical, under these conditions, for me to provide guidance on the implementation of a personal purpose?