What’s your purpose? Don’t you hate it when someone asks you that? You either have no idea what your purpose is or you feel it’s being egotistical to say.
I started thinking about purpose after reading Marion Milner’s Book, A Life of One’s Own (published in 1936). She begins her chapter on purpose by saying that many books and teachers say that one must determine one’s aim in life. Isn’t this the truth? There is societal pressure to do so, beginning from a very young age. We’re constantly asking kids “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
A cursory look at an online bookstore shows all kinds of popular books related to purpose.
- A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
- The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth am I Here For? by Rick Warren
- Purpose: Find your Truth and Embrace your Calling by Jessica Warren
- Own your Everyday: Overcome the Pressure to Prove and Show up for what you were Made to Do by Jordan Lee
- Life Purpose: The No-Bullshit Guide to Finding your Passion and Living a Meaningful Life by John Killingsworth
What is purpose?
The dictionary defines purpose as “an intention or end to be attained.” It’s something that will come to be (or not) in the future and we develop goals (which have a time boundary) in order to achieve that purpose. Nothing wrong with that, right?
When Milner reflected on purpose, she saw that most people thought of it in relation to a job or title or a certain level of financial success. But this limited kind of purpose doesn’t encompass the whole of you. When she looked at how she was living her life, she found that her underlying motivations for what she did were around pleasing others; to be liked or admired, to not offend. She began to think about what she really wanted out of life and wondered if life was a little too complex for one purpose.
“I began to have an idea of my life, not as the slow shaping of achievement to fit my preconceived purposes, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know.”
Isn’t that the way it works for most of us? You go to school for accountancy, and through the creative writing elective, you discover a passion for writing. Your mother dies at a young age from a rare disease and you spend the rest of your life bringing awareness to that disease. You lose your job in the business world and take up yoga. It changes your life, so you open your own studio. The thing is, your purpose evolves from how you interact with the world and what happens along the way.
Look back at your own life and see if this holds true. I grew up thinking that I wanted to follow in my Dad’s footsteps by working in business. I went to school for a Math degree (because I was good at it) and worked for a large corporation for seven years. By this time, I knew this was not what I wanted for my life but I had no idea what I did want. Only after reading a book about Ansel Adams’ life did I get a glimpse of what could be. It was not necessarily his photography, but his whole life. He was passionate about living and this manifested through photography, music, and environmental activism.
Milner came to the conclusion that “maybe her real purpose is to learn to have no purposes. A specific purpose runs the risk that I might miss the many-splendoured thing.”
”I was continuing whipping my will to effort after endless goals, which might be shifting me away from what I really wanted. My greatest need might be to let go and be free from the drive after achievement, if I only I dared. Then I might be free to become aware of some other purpose more fundamental, not self-imposed private ambitions but something which grew out of the essence of one’s own nature. People say to be yourself at all costs. But it’s not so easy to know just what one’s self is. It’s far easier to want what other people seem to want and then imagine that the choice was one’s own.”
Is not having a purpose fundamental to life?
When I asked a friend what she thought of this idea of having no purpose, she said that maybe it would work for the second half of life, but not the first half. She wondered whether, if young people did not have a purpose, they would just sit on the couch watching TV and eating chips. Personally, I know way more older people that do that.
Not having purpose doesn’t mean you don’t do anything. Although there’s value in doing nothing too, but that’s for another post. It also doesn’t mean you don’t have a purpose. It’s more that you don’t decide your purpose. It’s already there inside of you. Just let it reveal itself through your interactions in the world. Pay attention and do what’s meaningful for right now. If not having a purpose is fundamental to life, and I believe it is, then it applies to all of life. What would happen if we encouraged our kids to create and thrive based on their current interests and needs? Maybe their purpose would reveal itself earlier, without all that pressure.
Your purpose may be a way of being, a mindset, not a specific something to strive for. If you go back and look at those book titles again, they allude to that idea. Each of us is unique in our own way. We have a way of being that we bring into a room, a way of interacting when we’re at our best. This ineffable something is called by many names – dharma, calling, genius, passion, purpose.
Years ago, I read a book by Kevin McCarthy called The On-Purpose Person: Making Your Life Make Sense. I revisited this book in preparation for this post. McCarthy differentiates between purpose (Why am I here?), vision (Where am I going?), mission (How will I get there?), and values (What’s important?).
“Your purpose isn’t a perishable event subject to obsolescence. It is situation-free. It endures into eternity. Vision and mission are subject to change. Your purpose is permanent and ever aspiring to inform your new challenges and circumstances. Continual personal learning is the cornerstone to remaining a viable on-purpose person. Expect the expression of your purpose to change and mature over time, but the essence of your purpose is unalterable.”
On McCarthy’s website, you can do a quiz to determine your two-word purpose. I tried it and didn’t really think that purpose could be pared down to two words based on one short quiz. However, it was an interesting process, kind of like a sports playoff. You’re given two two-word phrases and you choose the one most meaningful to you. Then, all of the phrases you chose are paired up against each other. This keeps going until you’re down to a final two-word phrase. You attach this phrase to the sentence, “I am here to serve by …” My answer? Unearthing Treasure.
Well, if you know me at all, this is just about perfect. There’s more that comes after, but I’ll leave it at that for now. Basically, this is the mojo you bring to everything you do. If you’re not sure what that is, ask someone who loves you what you bring into a room. Do McCarthy’s quiz. Look for clues over the course of your life – what you’re passionate about, obstacles that have crossed your path, things that have happened by chance, what you really want.