After a magical moonrise there was an almost equally magical sunrise, in Gothenburg.

After the silence I stood on a stage in front of a conference room filled with people. Through the bright lights on stage I could sense the confusion, the questions, and the timidity of an organization that has gone through a dismantling and rebuilding in the past year. While I did not know the people in the room I sensed the need for a purpose.

And I thought of how professional organizations are more like collective individuals than families. A family’s main purpose is to support each member, but an individual or an organization needs a higher, more defined purpose to reach for.

If we have no purpose to strive for together, we will not be brought together in union. And if there is no union there is discord, or dullness.

Some say that the second best may be to improve the world, but the highest best is to improve oneself from the inside. Yet, when people work together with a noble purpose, they improve both the world as well as themselves in ways they never thought possible.

The sun was high when I left the conference room and my new friends. I look forward to keeping closer contact and observing them recreate a new, fresh sense of purpose.

(Gothenburg, Sweden; August 2016)