The purpose of your life is to discover the purpose of your life.
The first thing you should know about purpose is that it’s not sold in bottles. There’s no app for it. You won’t find it down the back of the sofa, next to the missing remote and a colony of biscuit crumbs that could claim independence.
Purpose is that exquisitely human yearning to matter, like a Labrador pawing at the door of the cosmos, asking to be let in.
People talk about “finding” their purpose, as if it’s some vintage vinyl they lost. You don’t find purpose like you find your keys. It’s more like falling in love: entirely irrational, inconvenient, and often arrives dressed in the wrong trousers.
The problem is, we live in a culture of pursuit. Purpose, we’re told, is the Everest of self-help. Climb it, or die trying. There are podcasts, TED Talks, tea towels and entire cottage industries built on the promise of your inner light, your one true calling, as if life were a call centre and your purpose was holding on Line 2.
But let me tell you, most people don’t find their purpose at 23 after a gap year in Bali. They find it at 47, staring at their reflection in the microwave while heating up sad soup for one, asking themselves if this is it. And maybe it is.
Because purpose doesn’t always announce itself with a fanfare and fireworks. Often, it arrives in a whisper, some quiet, persistent itch behind the eyeballs that says, “Try again tomorrow.”
Purpose is what gets you out of bed when the duvet has declared martial law. It’s the thing that makes you keep showing up, at work, at the easel, at the foot of your child’s bed with another glass of water. It’s devotion dressed in drag.
It’s not glamorous. It’s not even Instagrammable. It’s showing up, screwing up, and showing up again.
You see, the modern disease is the belief that purpose must be unique, special, preferably monetised and photogenic. But the truth is, purpose doesn’t need to be impressive. It only needs to be yours.
The bloke who delivers your post may never write a novel or launch a startup, but if he walks his elderly neighbour’s dog every day because no one else will, well, there it is. Purpose, wagging its tail and sniffing a lamppost.
Of course, purpose is easier when you have problems. And here I must apologise to the middle class, who have been robbed of the character-forming grit of adversity. Nothing sharpens your reason for being like a dose of actual hardship.
People who’ve survived wars, famines, cancers, they don’t pontificate on purpose. They embody it. They don’t need bullet journals or scented candles. They need breakfast and a clean shirt.
But most of us, thank God, are not surviving. We’re existing, nibbling on distractions, scrolling through curated lives, looking for meaning like it’s a limited-time offer in a Black Friday deal.
And that’s why purpose eludes us: we’re too busy chasing the mirage of a meaningful life to notice the one we’re actually living.
Purpose doesn’t have to be permanent. It’s allowed to change its outfit. What moved you at 19 will bore you stupid at 40. That’s not failure; that’s evolution. And sometimes, just sometimes, purpose is simply this: be kind. Be curious. Be interested in something outside your own endlessly fascinating navel.
So if you’re still looking for purpose, here’s a tip: stop looking. Start doing. Do the thing that makes your ribs expand a bit. The thing that scares you slightly. The thing that’s harder than bingeing another episode. Purpose hides in motion, not meditation.
And no, you may never find the purpose. But you can always live with purpose. There’s a difference. One is a destination. The other is a decision.
Now put down the self-help book. Make some tea. Call your mother. Help someone without telling Twitter about it.
And congratulations, you’ve just had a brush with purpose.
And so, when I write that the purpose of your life is to discover the purpose of your life, and it sounds recursive, it probably is.
No one has pushed harder on untangling that strange loop than Dan Pink, whose professional career has been trying to illuminate the way for ordinary folks to find their drive and purpose.
He recently crafted a 10-minute video – How to Find Your Purpose – with clear, actionable steps you can take if you’re stuck.
I agree 100% with his approach and recommendations…..because they help.
Graeme Dinnen
ResourcesForLife.net
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