Pleasure is nice in a partnership, but purpose holds it together

​Too often, we enter into partnerships because the partnership feels good. That's not a problem. Who's going to knock feeling good? The problem comes when we have no idea what to do when the partnership hits an inevitable bump that doesn't feel so good.

Partnerships built on a desire to always feel good never last. Because nothing ALWAYS feels good.

But partnerships built on a shared purpose, a common direction, they always have a chance. Because when things start to feel sour, the partnership can recommit to getting where it's trying to get while acknowledging sour feelings are often a part of chasing a purpose.

Michael Todd says, "pleasure wears off in a challenge, remembering why you're in the challenge doesn't have to."

It's easy to rush into a partnership that feels good without ever asking, why am I entering this partnership. Which makes it impossible to know if you're in a partnership with a shared purpose.

This can be destructive to a partnership. Maybe it's the most common destruction to a partnership. Because the best question to bring an out of sorts partnership back in alignment isn't asking how can we get to feeling good again, it's how do we get back on the road to where we are committed to going?

If you've never identified the road, the partnership is lost.

Often literally.

Certainly I'm talking about romantic partnerships, but this idea goes beyond that.

A lot of people leave churches because they are no longer pleasurable.

A lot of people leave jobs because they are no longer pleasurable.

A lot of people give up on their diets or their exercise plans because they are no longer pleasurable.

Sometimes leaving is necessary. But if you find yourself leaving a lot of things in life, and leaving because these things no longer feel good, it's possible you're more committed to pleasure in life than purpose.

I say that lovingly as a recovering pleasure seeker in life.

Pleasure is nice. But I've come to know pleasure can also be the fools gold of life. It can often be life's greatest distraction from you chasing and discovering the REAL gold in life.

The gold you were meant to discover and create.

Because the reality is, we weren't made for pleasure, we were made for purpose. No matter how pleasurable you are feeling, if there isn't a purpose beneath the pleasure, you will always feel some kind of empty.

The answer to that emptiness isn't a new form of pleasure, the answer is returning to your purpose.

Or, in many cases, identifying it.