A powerful aid for making big life decisions is to have a personal mission statement or “life purpose” statement that has been tested by time. In her talk during University of Michigan Commencement this year, Twyla Tharp gave a very simple recipe for putting together a personal mission statement: choose one verb and one noun. Her two-word mission statement is “MAKE DANCE.”

I tell about some lengthier statements of my chosen life purpose in “My Objective Function.” If I strip it down to one verb and one noun, I choose for my life purpose “LOVE TRUTH.” What is yours?

Don’t Miss These Posts Related to Positive Mental Health and Maintaining One’s Moral Compass:

• Co-Active Coaching as a Tool for Maximizing Utility—Getting Where You Want in Life

• On Human Potential

• How Economists Can Enhance Their Scientific Creativity, Engagement and Impact

• 'Everything Happens for a Reason' for Nonsupernaturalists

• My Life will be Good When ...

• On Perfectionism

• Forgive Yourself

• Only What is in Our Power is Our Duty

• The Devil of Getting Criticized

• Improving Your User Illusion

• Judson Brewer, Elizabeth Bernstein and Mitchell Kaplan on Finding Inner Calm

• The Four Horsemen of Relationship Destruction

• The Golden Mean as Concavity of Objective Functions

• Glennon Doyle on Wild Humanity

• 'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz (with Janet Mills) and `The Fifth Agreement' by Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz (with Janet Mills)

• How I Became Optimistic

• Believe in Yourself

• Breaking the Chains

• Leaving a Legacy

• My Objective Function

• The Unmaking

• John Locke on the Mandate of Heaven

• Tom Gauld's Sympathy Cards for Scientists

• The Expanding Shoreline of Ignorance

• Contrasted Faults Through All Their Manners Reign

• Bex's Rules for Life

• Vicky Biggs Pradhan: How Crises Make Us Rethink Our Lives

• Vicky Biggs Pradhan: The Lost Art of Curiosity

• Recognizing Opportunity: The Case of the Golden Raspberries—Taryn Laakso

• Taryn Laakso: Battery Charge Trending to 0% — Time to Recharge

• Taryn Laakso: Righting Your Ship Before You Capsize

• Kristeen Barth: We Don't Have to Be for Everyone

• Dave Baillie: Calibrate Your Compass

• Gerard Theoret: 3 Turns of the Screw

• Savannah Taylor: Lessons of the Labyrinth and Tapping Into Your Inner Wisdom