#9: Finding your purpose
... and encountering loads of purpose anxiety along the way
The day I grew up is the day I realised I don't get handed a note from God or God's right-hand person —my mother— saying "right, you're 18, here's your Life Purpose™ so go fulfill it using the following guidelines..." Coincidentally, that is also the day I felt indignant that I'd been cheated into adult life. There's no goddamn map, and what actually lies yonder is miles upon miles of endless highways and slush and lizards. Very many lizards. Cows, too. Can you tell what my darkest fears are? Anyway.
The concept of purpose has been contentious for me personally. But it's something I desperately want to believe in, to validate my assumption that I'm not here to write 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, until I drop to the floor from sheer exhaustion and visibly steaming eyeballs. To tell myself there's a very valid reason that I'm having to live my day to day at a desk and not underwater or in a forest. And that I can successfully avoid the potential closing chapter of life that has had me in a cold sweat at 3 in the morning one too many times — that at the end of it all I'll have loads of money but alas, can't get out of bed.
Unfortunately, one's purpose doesn't unveil itself during a singular moment of clarity. At the risk of sounding like an Animal Planet narrator, it is elusive, tricky to spot, and camouflages itself against the background so you might miss it and go back to check. But during the time between missing it and doubling back, lots of events have conspired. You've probably tried your hand at different things, changed jobs in the hunt for purpose, maybe even sold off your worldly possessions to hit the hills. Or at the very least, you've experienced multiple existential crises one on top of the other, which is the route I decided to take.
Back in the days of mammoths and the Croods, the first two to three stages of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs were top of the to-do list. But given that today's society is growing more and more able to fulfill humankind's basic needs, we're all peering towards the horizon for the next step, which just so happens to be self-actualisation and purpose.
We're also living much longer, so there's a lot more time to ponder questions that the universe probably didn't mean for us to get our hands on, because we were still supposed to be learning to make fire. But well, we built planes and spaceships so we need something more challenging to think about. And then there's science trying to keep death more at more at bay, which leads us to square one: what the heck am I supposed to do with all these added years of my life?
And super interestingly, our notion of 'self' has taken a turn for the better (hat tip to Turner way back in 1976). Defining who you are had institutional and societal boundaries — if you weren't a boy, then you're definitely a girl, and if you didn't like pink, you like blue. But with time, we're discovering more and more of our true selves, and personal motivation trumps what society thinks. We've realised there's a wonderful spectrum out there that we can find ourselves in, instead of forcing ourselves to fit in one of two boxes like a disgruntled cat. If anything, we've landed at that stage where the only way to be the real "self" is to discover oneself by oneself.
The other thing I read recently is that there are two aspects to the Holy Grail of all questions: The purpose of life vs. the purpose within life. The second one is what I seek first: how do I live the right way? What is the right way? How do I live in a way that is meaningful?
I suppose it would be easy enough to answer that last question, if it weren't so dang complicated. For one, the definition of "meaningful" changes at every stage of life, according to human development theory. As a child, life had meaning for me only when I could run around with my dog, splash around with mates in the inflatable pool and steal sugar cubes from my dad's secretary. In school it revolved around friends and popularity (ah! that innocent time) and at university, life was meaningful only if I excelled at what I'd chosen to study —as opposed to forced to study— and say "that'll show everyone" at graduation. Meaning and purpose take on different shapes at every stage of life.
And boy, does that open up a treasure chest of anxiety. As the paradox of choice would have it, we're so overwhelmed by the number of purposes out there to choose from as our own OTP (One True Purpose), that we become psychologically distressed. To find our own very personal purpose, we're not only supposed to know our true selves but also accept and value them (Rockind, 2011). That's three different stages and a lifetime of work right there, so it's no wonder that we feel any amount of anxiety about finding (or not finding) our purpose.
All this makes me feel that "find your purpose" shouldn't be a phrase that's so loosely bandied about, from cocktail parties to therapy sessions. The idea of finding life's purpose is abstract, but the anxiety and stress that develops from it, and the consequences of this (often taxing) search, are very real. The search for purpose of life –or within life– is tied to so many layers of experiences and there's really no 'one size fits all' approach to this.
I, for one, would love to see talk of purpose being followed up with offers of support and tangible guidance. I'd also love it if the idea of purpose wasn't so heavily stressed upon or homogenised, because what carries meaning for me might not for someone else. And finally, I hope that we all learn to live life for what it throws at us, and not worry that we don't have a "purpose" defining our every step. Sometimes we do things because we want to, because it makes us happy, because we're mere puppets in the hands of our own immediate instincts and fancies, because we want to find something to love along the way. And that's okay.
Featured image taken by yours truly in Nikko, Japan
A question for you: how do you feel about these 1000-word-long newsletters? Would you rather read them on a blog with your morning chai and get short snippets leading you there via email? Or do you prefer continuing the way things are, because if it isn't broken I shouldn't fix it? Please do reply to this, comment on my Substack or send me an email– I'd love to know what you think.