why missions rather than just doing stuff

When Socrates famously said “the unexamined life is not worth living” he was not-so-famously (in fact, apocryphally, most likely) advocating a life of missions.  He was certainly not, however, advocating a life of great insights coupled with a life of just going through the motions.  Missions, as I envision them, are mini-adventures in life that connect one’s deepest creative insights and feelings with one’s actions.  But just as when you connect two parts hydrogen with one part oxygen you get water, so when a mission is designed rightly, it is magically more than its parts — it lifts experience into a more heightened realm; it lifts life out of the humdrum and into an unfolding story no one ever could have expected.  A world in which we perform missions is more malleable and interactive and mysterious and lawful and responsive and wisdom-filled than a world in which we just do stuff.  That world, sadly, just does stuff, too.  Having done enough stuff already in my life, I want missions!