On Purpose
Photo by Nateprat
The first time I questioned how we perceive life purpose was 3 years ago. I attended a meetup where one participant talked about their struggle with depression. They asked, “How can I find my life purpose?’“, hoping that finding it would ease their depression. Hearing this made me wonder: What drives us to seek purpose? Is there a lack within us that we hope a purpose would fill? Has purpose become another thing we’re told we need to find to feel fulfilled?
A small seed of doubt about how purpose tends to be presented was planted in that moment. I hadn’t thought much about it since then, but over the past couple of months, I’ve been reflecting on my job and considering my next steps. Eventually, after googling enough keywords, the internet began bombarding me with advertisements — sorry, recommendations — about career shifts and the quest to find purpose. Encountering more of this content prompted me to put my thoughts in writing.
There has been a surge of content promoting and romanticizing the grand idea of finding purpose in the past couple of years. There are endless books, videos, podcasts, and workshops to help you ‘find your purpose’. It’s starting to feel like an industry.
The sheer volume of questions and steps feels overwhelming: “What’s your talent? Values? Legacy? How do you want to save the world? How do you want to serve the greater good?” This approach of purpose comes with pressure and effort. It feels somewhat ego-driven—focused on legacy, saving the world, making a grand mark. Even more dangerously, it can make people feel like they fail or are incomplete if they don’t ‘find their purpose’. A piece of content I came across said: “Without a purpose, you’re lost. You have no north star. Your life will feel meaningless.” That’s not something I’d want someone to believe in.
Cambridge’s dictionary defines purpose as: why you do something or why something exists. There are certainly benefits in exploring questions about our values and what matters to us. They can help us understand ourselves better or inspire us to make a change in the world. However, I don’t believe the why of our existence depends on jumping through those hoops. We don’t need to work hard for our existence to have meaning. The idea that purpose is this profound, awe-inspiring thing I’m meant to do on earth? That I need to find it, otherwise my life would be meaningless? It doesn’t resonate with me.
Over the years, though it’s still evolving, I’ve started to form my own ideas on ‘purpose’.
It’s inherent in our existence; it’s not something to be found.
I believe purpose is inherent in our existence and organically expressed through our inner nature. Consider birds, like the nightingales or robins. They don’t think, “What is my purpose? I need a purpose so I can be fulfilled. What is my legacy for the world?” They just sing.
Vultures, also birds, behave differently. They don’t sing, but by consuming carcasses, they act as one of nature’s cleansers. Trees simply grow, and in doing so, provide shade. I sometimes smile when I read some of this ‘finding purpose’ content. Isn’t it funny how much mental gymnastics and effort we humans put into it?
Like different birds, we each have our own nature: what inspires us, how we inspire others, how we show up, and what draws us. In a culture that often pressures us toward conformity, we forget that, just like any ecosystem, our differences are what make us rich and what keeps life in balance. Imagine a world with only one type of bird, one type of tree, or only one type of personality.
If anything, I believe the work is in the shedding, not seeking. Shedding what we’ve been taught about how to live and behave uniformly. Living true to our most authentic selves is how we express our purpose, and it’s already there.
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken“
– Oscar Wilde –
It’s fluid; it’s not a fixed thing.
We keep on growing. Our souls evolve, guiding us to different interests in different stages of our lives. Sometimes we say ‘people change’ like it’s a bad thing, but I think it’s amazing that we do.
I’ve definitely changed. Some core values stuck with me my whole life, but my interests and inspirations have shifted, how I show up in this world has evolved, and my priorities are different. As we evolve in life, what is expressed through us also evolves moment by moment. Much content about finding purpose correlates it with a career, but I don’t believe that one job defines our purpose.
It’s in every living moment.
Purpose manifests in both the tiny everyday moments and life-defining ones, whether intentional or unintentional. The smile from a stranger as we pass by on the street. The hug, listening ears, and presence that we give to someone in times of suffering. The time when we release a bug out of the door. A small check-in that we do with a colleague after a tough meeting.
Yesterday I was riding the tram, and I saw this lady looking at her phone, smiling lovingly. Seeing her warmed my heart. In that moment, without knowing it, she served a purpose for me.
Everything we do and say, directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, impacts other beings. We may perform a seemingly trivial act that means a lot to someone. Sometimes people have told me how some of my words or presence was meaningful for them, and most of the time, it wasn’t intentional. I wasn’t trying. Sometimes I didn’t even remember what I said.
An activist protesting for what they believe in is expressing their purpose. Just as much as an ant working together in a colony, with hundreds of other ants, doing the ordinary work.
Sometimes, purpose can even appear in moments we’re less proud of. I’ve learned a lot from certain difficult interactions and endings in my life. I’m not trying to diminish the pain and suffering that exist in this world. Part of my practice is learning to hold both truths at once: the truth that there is so much suffering and injustice in this world that break my heart, and the truth that I’m just a tiny part of something much larger and miraculous, called life, whose way and wonder is something I will never fully understand (and I don’t intend to).
“By just being human and embracing our experience in all its joy, compassion, grief, and imperfections, every moment of our living here carries purpose“
It’s life expressing itself.
In my interactions with others, I’ve noticed that life wants to flow through us in different ways. Our growth, our unique way of being, what inspires us, and the passion we bring to others. I believe that we have the same source. You can call it love, life, God, consciousness, the Tao — whichever resonates with you. This source manifests differently through our unique inner nature.
Someone who expresses her messages through her photographs. Someone who guides others to live with seasonal cycles. Someone who helps migrants and refugees feel a sense of belonging. Someone who guides meditation for the community in their home. Someone who faced their fears and broke the chain of intergenerational patterns to provide a better life for their child.
The idea to start writing came as a complete surprise to me; it was something I’d never thought of before and something I never would’ve imagined. I always thought I hated writing. It took me almost a year to finally surrender to it. Some of the topics I’d want to write about came out of the blue. Like a random seed planted in my mind. It starts as a seed that grows bigger as I write. A couple of times, ideas even came randomly when I woke up in the middle of the night.
Isn’t it beautiful how we all have different aspirations? Can’t you see that every one of these aspirations brings something to the world? No matter whether it’s 1 or 1000 people that we touch with it.
So, can we rest in the simplicity and organic nature of purpose?
If you’re with me up to this point, and any of the previous reflections have nudged you to contemplate, I’d like to invite you into this final notion. What if we stop waiting for some future moment when we ‘find’ purpose.. and rest in the simplicity and humility that we are, and always have been, living it already.
We see all things in nature simply existing and being themselves. That’s how they play their part in this beautiful stage called life. And each existence matters all the same. Can we as humans accept that, too? Can we allow ourselves to let go of the striving and rest in the simplicity of being?
What stops us from saying… “I’m alive. That is good. And that is enough.”
We don’t need to chase purpose. Just breathe, live, and let life express itself through your unique inner nature.
“The meaning of life is just to be alive.
It is so plain and so obvious and so simple.
And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic
as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves“
– Alan Watts –
