On Purpose
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Purpose is not somewhere over there — It is not waiting at the end of a plan or on the other side of a life milestone. It lives, and is expressed, in how we meet what is directly in front of us.
Meaning is created and revealed simultaneously — Whether you experience purpose as something to be uncovered or something to be built, the ground of both is the present moment.
The small acts matter — How you show up for this ordinary day is not a preparation for the purposeful life. It is the purposeful life.
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“Forgetting a name, a poorly executed hug, the 7th grade — awkwardness is part of our lives whether we like it or not. But what if we put the embarrassment aside and embraced our awkward selves?”
Click here to listen to the episode from Ted Radio Hour!
Where is purpose?
A unifying quality of the human experience is that we inevitably begin to question purpose as we live our lives. What are we here for? What truly matters? This is a valuable question to consider and often the inquiry is connected to a habit of subtly noting that it is not currently where we are (i.e. purpose is somewhere over there or in a different point in time in the future once we have, X). In the meantime, the present moment can become a waiting room — something to move through on the way to a more meaningful life.
I am on this journey will all of you. Even after years of practicing therapy (my passion), new dimensions of purpose continue to reveal themselves to me as I engage with life. This newsletter for example arrived in the middle of an ordinary conversation with a friend, not in a moment of “grand vision”, but has become something that truly lights me up and gives me the chance to connect and share insights with numerous people at once. Purpose has an interesting way of being both bigger and smaller than we imagine. Bigger, in the sense that it is never truly captured in a single achievement, and smaller in that it often shows up in the ordinary choices we make everyday.
Today, we make space for an invitation to explore where we place the idea of purpose in our lives and consider what shifts when we consider purposeful living or discovering purpose is actively happening right here, right now. Just this, just here, just now.
The Meaning of Purpose
Let’s explore some definitions.
Viktor Frankl, whose work I’ve referenced before, offered one of the most enduring frameworks of purpose in his book Man’s Search for Meaning (📖). He noted that meaning and purpose is not something we find in the abstract or receive from external circumstances, but rather something we create through our response to the situations that life presents us with. Purpose is the continuous act of engagement, what we do with the moment that we are in.
This framing moves purpose from something in the future to something that is touched right now. It suggests that a meaningful life is not something that begins when certain conditions are met, but something that we are either building or bypassing right now.
To complement, there is a concept from Japanese philosophy that captures a similar idea — ikigai. Described as one's reason for being or the reason to get up in the morning, ikigai is not a single monumental purpose to be discovered, but rather something that emerges at the ongoing intersection of what we care about, what we can offer, what the world needs, and what sustains us. Meaning, in this sense, lives in active doing, the active engagement with our lives (i.e. tending our garden, showing up compassionately for a neighbor or loved one, returning to a craft you love).
These framings are quietly radical in that they suggest that the meaning and purpose we are searching for is already here and we might just be looking past it.
You may recognize the pattern of placing purpose “over there” in your own life as:
A sense that your life will really begin once a certain achievement, relationship, or milestone arrives
A vague pursuit of purpose without a clear sense of what would actually satisfy the search
A subtle dissatisfaction with the present, coupled with a hope that the future will feel more meaningful
The Practice of Purpose, Now.
Let’s try a reframe here, Mad Lib style! If you want to be ____________ someday, the question is not only about how will you build that future, but also how are you living into the vision as ____________ in the here and now? How are you expressing ____________ in small ways each and every day?
Now, different people will relate to purpose differently and this is something to recognize. For some, purpose feel like something to be revealed while others feel it is created — both are valid. There is no “right way” to relate to this information, rather the path you walk on will continually reveal itself as you walk it. The emphasis here is being engaged where purpose lives and aligns with your own sense of navigation through life, and discovering what feels right. Only you truly know.
The “over there” of purpose can sometimes feel like a beautiful north star, but when it only lives in a concept distant from us, it can steal the present moment and leave us continually preparing as oppose to actually living. The invitation here is to be with purpose now and discover how it can be expressed, even on an ordinary day like today.
Related Read — Your Relationship with Your Future Self ( 🔗 )
Off The Page: Actioning The Insights
Practicing purpose
Your practice this week
This week, the practice is to bring the values you are reaching for into the ordinary moments of your daily life, and to notice how meaning lives in the engagement and not solely the arrival. Review the reflection questions and strategies below and notate what resonates, or insight that arrive for you.
Reflection Questions:
What have you been waiting to become that you could begin practicing today?
What does the way you meet this ordinary day say about what you actually value?
What draws your attention consistently, in ways you may not have taken seriously?
If purpose is expressed in how you meet the moment, how are you meeting this one?
Strategies:
Choose one value and live it today
Identify a single value that lives at the center of the purposeful life you imagine for yourself. If the value is generosity, offer something small. If the value is honesty, tell one true thing. Be present with the expression, now.
Notice what you are already doing on purpose
Take a moment this week to reflect on the ways you are already doing things that reflect what matters to you. This is an affirmation practice to engage with recognition, give yourself the permission to bask in the feeling that arrives as you note that you might already be living with purpose, and give yourself the permission to see it clearly.
Follow one small pull
Notice something that draws your attention (i.e. a topic, a conversation, a creative impulse, an interest that has arisen more than once). Follow it a bit and discover what your life may be inviting you towards.
Note: Attempt to discover these things within yourself or the real world around you in moments of stillness, not in spaces constructed by algorithmic design — a synchronicity is a deeply personal and meaningful discovery or coincidence rooted in the inner psyche. This is different from scrolling online as your interactions create causally engineered data predictions driven by a computer program. Take this insight as you will.
Purpose is here, not there. Just this, just here, just now.
Thank You
Thank you for joining me this week! I’m excited to keep sharing insights from my work, research, and personal journey with you.
Did something resonate with you? Curious about applying these strategies in your life? Or know someone who might benefit?
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The Library
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A Listen for the Week
As I continue to consume relevant content, I will share it here to deepen knowledge, perspective, and inquiry on a variety of topics related to wellness. This week I am sharing an episode from the Ted Radio Hour podcast.
Life can be so awkward. Here’s how to embrace the embarrassing.
“Forgetting a name, a poorly executed hug, the 7th grade — awkwardness is part of our lives whether we like it or not. But what if we put the embarrassment aside and embraced our awkward selves?”
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