I was sitting with a few friends last week while Steve talked with Jen about a conversation he was planning to have with his son the next day. His son, Troy, is a senior trying to choose a college, and he has several strong options in front of him. My sense was Steve was leaning toward having Troy stay local to save money. Jen was encouraging him to let Troy go away—to live and enjoy the “college experience,” sharing how much she had gained from her own time at college.

And as I listened, I realized this wasn’t just a conversation about schools. It was a conversation about what we believe actually shapes a life.

College is one of the largest investments many families will ever make. Which makes the question even more important: are we paying for an environment… or for formation?

What is the “college experience,” really? For some, it’s growth, challenge, independence—learning how to think and engage with new ideas. For others, it can become something much smaller: a borrowed sense of belonging, shortcuts instead of integrity, parties built around consumption, and a loud kind of selfishness dressed up as freedom. At its best, it can be incredibly noble; at its worst, powerfully destructive.

And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized:

It’s not the place that forms us.
It’s what we pursue while we’re there.

It’s our motives. Our desires. The direction of our attention.

Are we learning to do good and serve others… or are we slowly being swept into the current around us?

Years ago, I was introduced to two ways people tend to live.

One is what my coach called the Instinctual Motivational Triad: seek pleasure, avoid difficulty, and conserve energy. It sounds harmless enough—until you realize that living this way often leads us straight into the very life we were trying to escape.

The other is the Transcendent Motivational Triad: seek purpose, pursue mastery, and take responsibility for your life. This path usually costs more up front. It asks more of us. But it is also the path where something deeper begins to form in us.

And the truth is, every environment pulls on both.

College. Work. Marriage. Church. Family. Friendship.

Every place we live asks the same quiet question:

Will I drift toward comfort and self-protection, or will I move toward purpose, responsibility, and love?

If the “college experience” becomes a place to chase comfort, conquest, stimulation, and escape, it quietly feeds the instinctual. But if it becomes a place to pursue purpose, stretch into responsibility, and develop mastery, it can become something entirely different.

The environment doesn’t decide that.

The pursuit does.

Even as I write that, I can see this instinctutal motivation clearly in my own life. When I was president of Trophy Awards, there were seasons where what I really wanted was comfort. Ease. The idea of early retirement and coasting.

And in that pursuit, I started avoiding the very things leadership requires. I wasn’t having the hard conversations. I wasn’t holding people accountable. I wasn’t creating a learning environment or helping people become more. I wasn’t affirming people well, calling out the beauty they carried, or seeking to know much of their lives beyond work. I quietly hoped that if I ignored certain problems… they might fix themselves.

If you had asked me in 2010 what success looked like, I probably would have described an archer’s target with concentric circles. And in the center—the bullseye—would have been one word: comfort.

By 2015, that same target had changed.

The bullseye was no longer comfort.

It was purpose.

For those who know my story, that path led to some of the most challenging years of my life. The leader I wanted to become was never going to emerge from a life organized around comfort, ease, and the conservation of energy.

He would only emerge through responsibility, challenge, and the willingness to step into the things I would rather avoid.

A few years later, I had an experience that deepened that lesson in a way I still haven’t fully processed.

My family and I had supported two young adults through college in the Philippines, and when their graduation came, we were invited to attend. My daughter heard about the trip and immediately wanted us to make the trip together. She didn’t want to just hear about their lives—she wanted to see it.

At the ceremony, we met one of the students we had supported. Her name was Jastene. She recognized me from a photo I had sent months earlier, which caught me off guard in a humbling way—like our worlds had been quietly connected long before we ever met in person.

The graduation itself was beautiful. There were speeches filled with faith, gratitude, and responsibility. A genuine call to use their education not just for themselves, but for others. You could feel it: this wasn’t just about achievement. It was about purpose and stewardship.

The next day, we spent about twelve hours with Jastene. She took us to meet her family. About eight of them lived together in a home made of cinderblock and corrugated steel aboutt he size of my TV room—no polished floors, no modern kitchen, nothing we would consider normal in our world.

But what they had was undeniable—warmth, joy, presence, and care for one another. It wasn’t something they were trying to show us. It was simply how they lived.

And I found myself noticing something I’ve seen in a few places like this: when material resources are limited, relational connection can become incredibly rich. Not always—but often enough that it makes you pause.

It struck me in a quiet way:

They weren’t living for comfort.
They were living with purpose.

Later that day, Jastene asked if we wanted to walk through the local fish market. I’ve always loved fish—I’ve had them as pets, I enjoy fishing, and I enjoy eating them—so I was excited to see it.

Just before we entered, a young boy—maybe four or five years old—walked up to me. He was completely naked, dirty, and seemed completely alone. He put his hand against my leg, palm up, asking for money.

Everything in me wanted to help him, but Jastene gently motioned for me not to. Later, she explained that some children in that area are sent out to beg by adults who use them to collect money. I didn’t know what to do with that. I still don’t.

A couple days later, we were on the flight home. I looked over at my daughter, and we both had tears in our eyes.

Things we had once been insulated from had become real—both in beauty and in pain. The love of a family with so little. The weight of a child we couldn’t help. And the quiet realization that we may never see Jastene or the other friends we had met again.

There was a sense of loss in that. And also something harder to name… like our view of life had been stretched beyond what it could easily hold.

And maybe that’s when it became clearer to me:

The environments that shape us most aren’t usually the ones that make life easiest.

They’re the ones that stretch us, shake our existing beliefs, and push us to see uncomfortable realities we can no longer unsee.

So when I hear people talk about the “college experience,” I find myself asking a different question:

Which path is it feeding—and what’s driving it?

Is it feeding the instinct to stay comfortable, entertained, and unchallenged—or is it strengthening the deeper pull toward purpose, responsibility, and growth?

Because you can drift at a university. You can grow in a village. You can numb yourself in comfort. Or you can come alive in responsibility.

So maybe the better question isn’t:

“Where should they go?”

Maybe it’s:

Who do they want to become?
What is truly motivating them?
And will the path they choose take them where they really want to go?

Because environments do matter.

They can pull us toward comfort, escape, and drift.

Or they can invite us into purpose, responsibility, and growth.

And for those willing to choose the difficult and more transcendent path, there is a deeper reward waiting—not just success, but formation. Not just experience, but becoming.

And maybe that’s the real invitation—not just to choose a place, but to choose a path.

To embrace purpose over pleasure.
Responsibility over escape.
Formation over comfort.

Because the goal isn’t just to have an experience.

The goal is to become more fully alive, more deeply formed, and more radiant with purpose.