Every ambitious person needs a good hobby to escape into once in a while. And, of course, some hobbies can serve higher creative purposes. There's nothing "creative" in the strict sense about, for example, personal computer programming — it's no more creative than basket weaving or pottery making. But you can use such programming to augment all kinds of efforts to teach and lead.

It's a tragic mistake when people postpone higher purposes to their retirement. I've known people in the corporate world who looked forward to retiring but who, when that day came, literally died of boredom and depression because they had never really figured out what they were meant to do with their lives anyway. This is a well-known side-effect of "workaholism".

My brother-in-law, who had a talent for drawing when he was young, postponed his interest in art for forty years, enslaved to a blue-collar job out of a sense of duty to his family. But now that his wife is dead and his children will soon be gone, he's waking up to the terrifying realization that he forgot to have a life. He is shocked to learn that he has no idea how to be happy. Unless you leave room to be happy now, you will never be happy.

It used to be thought that happiness was the ultimate goal of life, but actually happiness and contentment are fairly easy to find in the modern world if you're sensible about things, enjoy some creature comforts, and let yourself have time-outs for recreation. So then what does the purpose of life become? For most of us, it's to make some kind of contribution to building a better world for the next generation.

Fortunately a lot of young people are scared about becoming corporate tools, soulless robots in lock-step with a mindless society. They look around themselves and see that their parents and most of the people they come into contact with lost their souls decades ago. So, while there's nothing wrong with wanting to have money and the comforts it can buy (and the happiness this can bring), they hold back a little just in case something even better comes along. I think they instinctively realize that beyond the pursuit of happiness lies the pursuit of worth, of feeling important. Our idea of happiness is itself evolving.

There is no ultimate goal in history, like many "end times" religions and cults like to think. There will always be new ways to improve the world. And there's always the possibility — indeed the inevitability — of expanding our goals in life and our ideas about what to devote ourselves to. People used to be satisfied just surviving and keeping their family alive, after all. Then they wanted to be rich, then famous, then "happy" — which was the Enlightenment's equivalent of a flaky New Age idea. Today most of us want to make a contribution of some sort, but who knows what even grander goals tomorrow may bring. Goals that no one will want to live without.

We really have no idea what our species is ultimately capable of. So let's stop trying to nail it down into a bumper sticker and get on with the open-ended processes of personal growth and social progress.

And that's my bumper sticker for today.