Hi John Wow.... thank you. The only parts I don't agree with are 'I fear that I have little to offer here' and 'The response I am offering is not particularly comforting.' Never underestimate how liberating (and comforting) it is to be freed from useless beliefs! I have been to the local land fill and re-read the epistomology section as you suggested. Your post does leave me with some questions: 1 You mention choices 'that place no constraints on the who's you may choose to be tomorrow' What about choices that involve a clear public identity. If you chose to run a casino, you would still be percieved by many as 'The NLP guy who's now running a casino.'Should we just ignore the perceptions of others in making these choices. Is this what you are referring to when you mention the reaction of people I'm associated with? 2 Assuming the mission/purpose belief is 'absurd' how would you account for individuals who very cleary have one area of professional focus which an observer (not me now!) might say they're destined for. EG What else was Springsteen going to do but be a rock singer....what would Al Pacino do but act? Would you say that their careers were created purely through choices - and as individuals they could easily have chosen other directions? 3 You wrote 'After some success (however, you decide to define this tricky beast), and you seem to have already had some, deliberately select the X's and Y's of the next adventure so that you are choosing things that do NOT play to your already present strengths. Learning and doing some new X or Y that you already have many of the skills that are implied by it will be much less stimulating and interesting than choosing some S or Y in which you have zero background and as little natural ability as possible. This is the stretch principle at its best.' I assume you are talking about adding these new areas to your repertoire rather than necessarily continually replacing what you are doing with something else (I'm thinking specifically of career) 4 I can understand the concept of an 'authentic me'being nonsense in relation to career choices. What I'm struggling with is I am very clear when I am NOT being authentic in my communication with others. If there's not an authentic me, what's going on? 5 Given your response, why are supposedly highly regarded NLP trainers telling trainees they have missions and purposes to be discovered (I know you probably can't answer that - just my little moan. I'll get over it!) Thank you again. The world looks different today. Jane