priority. Live for productivity.
As I reflect on this story, I believe Dickens reveals purpose as a
combination of where we’re going and what’s important to us. He
implies that our priority is what we place the greatest importance on
and our productivity comes from the actions we take. He lays out life
as a series of connected choices, where our purpose sets our priority
and our priority determines the productivity our actions produce.
To Dickens, our purpose determines who we are.
Scrooge is transparent and easy to understand, so let’s revisit A
Christmas Carol through the lens of Dickens’s formula. At the place
we enter his life, Scrooge’s purpose is clearly about money. He
pursues a life either working for it or being alone with it. He cares for
money more than for people and believes that money is the end by
which any means are justified. Based on his purpose, his priority is
straightforward: making as much money for himself as he can.
Collecting coin is what matters to Scrooge. As a result, his
productivity is always aimed at making money. When he takes a
break from making it, for fun, he counts it. Earning, netting, lending,
receiving, tallying—these are the actions that fill his days, for he is
greedy, selfish, and unmoved by the human condition of those around
him.
By Scrooge’s own standards, he’s highly productive in
accomplishing his purpose. By anyone else’s, it’s simply a miserable
life.
This would be the end of the story, were it not for the perspective
provided to Ebenezer by his former partner. Jacob Marley didn’t want
Scrooge to reach the same dead end he had. So, after the haunting,
what happened to Scrooge? By Dickens’s account, his purpose
changed, which changed his most important priority, which changed
where he focused his productivity. After Marley’s intervention,
Scrooge experienced the transformative power of a new purpose.
So, who did he become? Well, let’s look.
coco
(coco)
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