Maybe the best way to get a sense of what constitutes a personal quest is to first consider what it isn’t.
Among other things, a personal quest is not a mission, a goal, a dream, an adventure, a short- or long-term intention, an aspiration, an objective, or a life purpose. A quest is likely to include some of those things, but it is ultimately, as the saying goes, a whole other thing.
Not a Quest
Susan Cain, author of Quiet (The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking) wanted to become a writer. Her stated goal was to publish something, anything, by the time she was 75. Although her desire to become a published writer was described as a quest, it was actually a long-term intention.
Entrepreneur Chris Guillebeau enjoys travel. He set out to visit every country in the world. Visiting every country in the world was certainly a goal (it would change his status quo), as well as—per his description—a mission and a “grand adventure,” but it was not a quest.
Guillebeau wrote a book, The Happiness of Pursuit, ostensibly about people pursuing quests. In it, he shares various examples.
Maybe a Quest
A woman in Omaha, Guillebeau says, set out to knit 10,000 hats. Another woman in Oklahoma City decided to make a meal from every country in the world.
Knitting 10,000 hats is a project or an intention. But some research on the woman behind it (Robyn Devine) reveals that she has always wanted to change the world. There’s the possibility of a quest in her pursuit.
Similarly, making a meal from every country in the world is not a quest but a goal. However, Sasha Martin’s motivation was to broaden her young daughter’s perspective about the world. She says she believes that “cooking has the power to help families bond, empower, and heal. What’s more, setting a global table creates compassion and understanding—which helps the world heal.”
Martin developed a lovely website and a wrote a book (a memoir) that have expanded her reach beyond her immediate family. There’s a possibility of a quest there, too.
Definitely a Quest
Tim Jenison—engineer, inventor, founder of a computer graphics company, and art lover—wanted to find out if artist Johannes Vermeer could have gotten his stunning, photo-realist results (paintings that “glow” and “pop” and have a “magical quality”) by using a particular optical device. [I previously wrote about Jenison’s quest. You can also find out more in the documentary Tim’s Vermeer.]
In Jenison’s case, all three major components of a quest were present:
Question + Passion + Action
Question:Could Vermeer have gotten his results using something like the mirror device that Jenison invented?
Passion: “Sometimes when I’m trying to get to sleep, all I can think about is trying to paint a Vermeer.”
Action: Jenison recreated the scene for Vermeer’s The Music Room down to the tiniest details and used his mirror device to painstakingly paint his picture. The entire project took over four years to complete.
Another significant aspect of a personal quest is that while it’s personal, it is also bigger than you. By personal, I mean something that matters to you, that arises out of what interests you and what you know, and that is chosen by you. By bigger than you, I mean something that connects you to the wider world. That connection needn’t be grand or on a public scale; but it does need to be a movement outward rather than inward.
Personal: Jenison was a computer graphics artist who had a fascination with technology. His interest in art, combined with his experience with cameras and software, led him to formulate his question.
Bigger than You: Jenison’s personal interest tapped into a line of inquiry about Seventeenth Century European painters that already included contributions by artist David Hockney and architect Philip Steadman.
The final component or qualifier of a quest is that the outcome is uncertain. You don’t know the answer to the question; you don’t even know if there is an answer or if you will be able to find it. You don’t know if the problem or puzzle can be solved. You don’t know if you’ll find what you’re looking for.
Uncertainty: Not only was it impossible for Jenison to prove whether or not Vermeer had used something like his mirror device to create his paintings, there was no guarantee that his experiment would even determine whether or not Vermeer could have done so.
Quests share this uncertainty with juicy desired outcomes, experiments, and of course, transformational change.
Looking back at Robyn Devine, the knitter, and Sasha Martin, the cook and memoirist, how do you think their goals or intentions could have been reframed or transformed into quests, using the quest framework:
Question + Passion + Action
Personal + Bigger than You
Uncertainty
You might have a different question, though: Why? What difference does it make whether you operate from the perspective of a quest or the perspective of a goal, a project, or an objective?
As David DiSalvo wrote in What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite, “We have a big brain capable of greatness with hardwiring for survival.” The big brain that differentiates us from other species doesn’t just allow us to ask big questions, attempt to solve complex problems, and imagine different outcomes; it compels us to do so. Identifying and pursuing our personal quest may be the greatest expression of what it means to be human.