In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose—a
productive purpose . . . A central purpose serves to integrate all the other
concerns of a man’s life. It establishes the hierarchy, the relative
importance, of his values, it saves him from pointless inner conflicts, it
permits him to enjoy life on a wide scale and to carry that enjoyment into any
area open to his mind; whereas a man without a purpose is lost in chaos. He
does not know what his values are. He does not know how to judge. He cannot
tell what is or is not important to him, and, therefore, he drifts helplessly
at the mercy of any chance stimulus or any whim of the moment. He can enjoy
nothing. He spends his life searching for some value which he will never find.