The 4P Principle: Pause and play (passion and purpose)
For the last 55 years, I’ve been working on a puzzle, selecting the pieces, turning them over, fitting them together and taking them apart, piece by piece by piece. This article sets out the beginning of my research and experimentation on the inter-relationships of pause, play, passion and purpose.
For the last 6 months, I’ve been living with this puzzle turned principle. A principle I have been experimenting with, playing with, turning over and over in my head, researching, drawing, discussing and listening to others as they interact with it.
The 4P Principle, as I call it now, is made up of individual elements that all of us have been reading and thinking about, particularly over the last few pandemic years.
We’ve been reading and thinking a lot about rest, for example — and my guess is 2022 will be the year of the Great Expiration (complementing the Great Resignation that reared its head in 2021), or the Great Letting Out. The year of giving all we’ve been through a rest. I call it a pause (because out of pause comes play; out of rest comes restart), but many, including authors Gretchen Rubin and Ximena Vengoechea are focussing on rest.
The last few years, too, we’ve seen books and TED Talks come out on humour, fun and play and at least one treatise on how to beat “languishing”. It’s not just books and talks. As I observe those in Europe and the United States, I see and feel a palpable craving for the return to laughter, fun and play. My thought is play will be our battle cry (yes, a welcome and amusing one at that, after all this “war” on the pandemic, and each other, of the early 2020s) in 2023.
My 4P Principle is rooted in what comes of the combination of pause and play, of what happens when humans, young and old, sit or stand still for a moment, and out of stillness, spontaneously begin to play. When they grow present, enter flow, and lose themselves in an activity. When judgement and self-consciousness are suspended, and they give themselves permission to experiment, try something new, create. When I watch children and adults alike enter this state, I see passion alight. Passion is the third element of the 4Ps Principle.
I posit that from pause and play and passion emerges human purpose.
I also posit that without pause and play and passion, it is difficult to uncover or own one’s purpose:
- That until we step back, breathe, pause, give ourselves space,
- And until we let go and let ourselves play,
- And until we create the time and the space and the permission to freely explore our passions, paying close attention to the moments of flow and spark we set alight in the pursuit of those things that make us feel alive (again),
- We cannot find and live our purpose.
In the months to come, I will be exploring the interaction between these four elements, how they fit and flow and work together.
I will explore the research, the psychology annals, records of our earliest, and more modern, history. I will turn to literature, to music, to cultural traditions, to biographies and memoirs of those who have found and lived their purpose, and those who have revelled in pause and play and passion.
I will turn to you. I will survey and interview those of you who love and make time for pause, or for play, or for passion, or for purpose — or all four!
I will continue to experiment with the 4Ps and how they connect and feed each other, and will share what I am learning as I play and test and iterate.
It occurs to me that we have been studying the four elements separately for almost as long as we have been able to think. The point that most fascinates me, however, is how the 4Ps are interconnected, not separate, and how together, they lead to a well-lived life.
If you want to follow or participate in this work on Pause and Play (Passion and Purpose), by pointing me in an interesting direction, or answering my questions about your interaction with the 4Ps, or sharing your experience and your thoughts about one or all of the 4Ps, you can do two things:
- Sign up for my free newsletter called Hit Pause, Then Play, to receive news on my learnings, research, experiments and thoughts, and become a cherished “insider” and supporter of the work on the 4Ps.
- Reach out to me via email (julie.harrisguiader[at]gmail.com] to share your thoughts or set up a call so we can chat further.
I do not sell or share personal data and our conversations will remain confidential unless you’d like to be credited.
A very wise man recently told me that this 4Ps Principle of mine will evolve and change and grow over the months and years to come. How very exciting! Nothing makes me happier — to know that I don’t yet have it “right”. I may never have it “right” — but I’m going to have fun playing, pausing, exploring passion and getting closer to purpose. That part I do know.
I hope you’ll join me.
Feel free to share this article, or give a “clap” if you enjoyed it. For more information as this project evolves, Hit Pause, Then Play.
