The most successful among us got to where they are today because they transcended obstacles.
—Unfu*k Yourself, p. 147
It seems the bullshit bombs are everywhere on social media these days when it comes to the subject of purpose.
We’re constantly being sold an idea, a tonic for all our woes, a promise to help you “find your purpose.” It’s fast becoming the modern-day snake oil, and the business is, apparently, very good indeed.
Buy this course, follow this account, sign up for this newsletter, do this workshop, or join this community and all for $29 a month or a onetime fee of $499 to learn the tips and secrets that will help you in your worldwide pursuit of the one thing that all the smart people have but apparently you don’t. It seems your purpose is out there just waiting for you. Somewhere.
Fly your purpose-seeking ass to the beaches of Thailand or become a world-renowned professional surfer or write for your favorite high-end magazines or meditate with animals on Instagram. I mean FFS, where does it all end?
Purpose, purpose, purpose. We’re fed a hearty diet of how much we need it, how our lives will only ever be complete and fulfilled once we find it. If only you had purpose, you’d love every last minute of your life, brimming with gratitude and aliveness and every day would be nothing but sunshine and rainbows and cool unicorns, right? Find your purpose and you’ll never work a day in your life. Ugh.
There’s a major flaw here. This apparent “search” for purpose (it must be a search since you’re supposed to find it) leaves you with something a little less empowering than it seems at first glance.
Think about it. If you’re searching for your lost keys or your missing phone or that elusive sign on the highway (and don’t get me started on “looking for love”), it’s not like you’re lit up like a Christmas tree, filled with possibility and life-inducing purpose juice, is it? No, you’re usually agitated or annoyed or worried or some other negative experience of yourself. Why? Because you are looking for something you don’t currently have but that you are certain you need and if you don’t get that thing, something bad is going to happen. No wonder everyone is so worked up about this purpose shit!
Finding your purpose has become an external answer to what is fundamentally an internal question. You’re unhappy, you’re unfulfilled, I get it. But what makes you think the answer to that is out there? I know, I know, according to this cool person on social media (who looks like their shit is together), they “found” their purpose making jewelry from old shoes and cocktail shrimp tails and not only are they all calm and shit, but they’re loaded now too!
This search for purpose has led you on a wild goose chase, like you’re some kind of Indiana Jones character climbing through remote jungles and ancient, booby-trapped temples for that mystical holy grail: YOUR purpose. Like there is only one for you, and dammit, you better find that sucker!
And once you lay your weary eyes on it, you’re going to become immediately enlightened. As you step out of the shadows on that glorious day to slowly remove your purpose from its holy golden plinth, your hands trembling with excitement, the angels will sing, you’ll be filled with the ecstasy of the ages, and your bank account will receive an instant transfer from the universe because you are at one with it all and everybody else can go fuck themselves.
Suddenly your life is now about frolicking with orphaned baby koala bears in the outback and using your downtime to finger-pick your one-of-a-kind acoustic guitar (handmade by Peruvian artisans in a small workshop snuggled in the ruins of the Machu Picchu), to a YouTube audience of millions, while all the other idiots will be stuck in their cubicles at the call center wishing they had done that damn course with you.
Because, of course, your “purpose” is always portrayed as something radically different from what you’re currently doing, often as something completely outside the box. I mean, you can’t live your purpose in your neighborhood or in that sucky job of yours, right?
Not if you go along with the purpose monkeys, that’s for sure.
Had enough yet? Look, it’s all just BS, and while I’m sure somebody somewhere came up with the idea of “purpose” to inspire people, it has mostly become yet another syrupy gimmick in an already complex and testing world.
So what exactly are you supposed to do? If meditating in the deserts of Arizona or diving among the corals of the Great Barrier Reef isn’t the divine answer to living a life of purpose, what is?
Well, let’s take a look, shall we?
It’s probably best to define purpose before we get too deep into this. I’ll go with the dictionary definition:
pur·pose: the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.
Hmmm . . . the reason for which something (namely you) exists. Or, more accurately, a compelling and inspiring reason for you to truly live rather than just exist or survive. Something that empowers you to powerfully live—purposefully. An irresistible context for being alive.
Or as I like to say, for you to live on purpose. What would it look like for you to actually live with purpose? Who would you be? What would you be doing?
To start, you’re going to list all the areas of your life in which you feel you lack direction or fulfillment or aliveness, or the areas where you feel a general sense of going nowhere. Pay special attention to those areas where it feels like you are wasting your time or spinning your wheels. Be specific here: do not generalize, but instead itemize your life. Bear in mind that this list can include anything, including career, body, finances, or love life, but it has to come from the life you have and not the one you want to have.
Q. Where specifically in your life do you feel there is something lacking?
Q. In terms of having the most negative effect on you, list the three areas of life that you feel do not reflect how you want your life to go and, in each case, clearly state why you think these areas are the way they are.
Q. When you look at these three areas of life, what is it like for you to experience them as they currently are? Be specific. What is it like for you to get up in the morning and face a life like this? What is the weight or impact on your day-to-day life, and how are you limited by your life being this way?
Q. What do you sacrifice about yourself by having life be this way? What is this costing you?
Q. If your life keeps going in this direction, if you take away the illusion of hope or optimism, how do you predict your life will turn out in two, three, or five years?
It’s pretty obvious that this is something that has to change, right?!
Look over the areas that you listed where you feel something is lacking. Now pick the one area you are choosing to bring to life.
I am committing to bring purpose to
_______________________________________________________.
INTENTIONAL INTENT
You see, the point here is to start taking on specific areas of your life with some kind of overriding intent. A commitment to turn off the autopilot you’re currently coasting on. To be alive to your potential, eager to make a difference. To no longer just go along with the bullshit. To step out there and take a stand for what really matters to you. A point to everything that you do.
To live with purpose.
Let me give you one of my favorite and most inspiring examples of someone who lives with purpose.
My wife.
When my eldest son was about seven or eight years old, I was traveling a lot for work, and my wife did all the running around with him. And I mean ALL of it. Even if you set aside the litany of stuff she handled at home, from bills to laundry to cleaning and everything else, there was still football, tae kwon do, school, birthday parties, homework, practice, doctors, dentists, you name it, she was shuttling that kid around for miles and miles, seven days a week, week after week, month after month, from this event to that event, scrambling for the right clothes, snacks, dealing with the traffic, teachers, instructors, teammates, weather, you get the picture, right? Oh yeah, and we had a newborn then too.
I was constantly amazed at the ease and grace with which she got it all done. I mean, people all over the world are doing this kind of stuff but it’s grinding them down, they’re burned out and resigned and teetering on the edge day after day. I needed to know her secret, for the love of God!
So I asked her.
And she told me.
“Here,” she said as she nonchalantly handed me her phone with the calendar app open.
I excitedly scanned the screen and the list of appointment after appointment, all organized, and immediately I just assumed that’s the answer. She’s organized.
“No, you goofball, lots of people are organized. Open one of those appointments,” she said.
So I did. And there it was staring me right in the face. Her reason for being alive. Her purpose.
It said, “Football practice—5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.” (nothing extraordinary about that, right?), but then just below in capital letters it proudly proclaimed, “CREATING A MAN.”
Shit. That’s what this is about? She’s really creating a man! Our son.
It hit me like an errant train. The lump in my throat grew; I was moved by the commitment and clarity of purpose she had created for herself. My eyes welled up with the surging emotion. This is it? This is what all of this is about? All the hassle, all the driving, coaxing, and coaching, making sure the calendar is up to date and the snot is wiped and the drying of tears, one-woman-taking-on-all-the-BS suburban warrior, this is what is fueling her?
It turns out she’s just like everyone else. She gets deflated, she gets overwhelmed and stressed and slips onto autopilot just like you do. And then she reminds herself of her purpose, what this life of hers is about, right there in a moment of running ten minutes late for school or scrambling for quarters at the toll booth.
She’s creating a man. That’s what ALL of this is about for her, every single moment of her life is a full-on commitment to her reason for being alive. The one she put together and laid as a foundation for all she does. It’s what gets her out of her bed and into her life. I should add that she created this purpose after our son was born as something to invigorate herself and raise her game. It most certainly wasn’t a divine spiritual gift bestowed on her from some nebulous source of the universe or something. She quite literally made the fucking thing up.
And all these years later, she’s still living that purpose. It inspires her, she gets lit up by the challenge and settled by the reminder that this is what it’s all about. All day. Every day. This woman loves her life and what she’s up to in it, and she created the whole damn thing herself.
Just like you can.
FROM FANTASY TO PURPOSE
Look at that area of life you picked earlier, and you’ll see the gaping hole. There’s no purpose, no real point to it. There’s an absence of inspiration, of aliveness, and of the kind of magnetism that draws a person out of the autopilot we all too easily get sucked onto.
Why? Because you never created any. Most people believe that inspiration comes at you, not from you and that, my friend, is a superstition. Inspiration is created and expressed; it’s not to be hunted down or found somewhere under a rock in the Himalayas.
“But Gary, the Himalayas are magical and mystical and amazing. I’d LOVE to go there! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Oh, be quiet, Captain Stardust.
Right now, there’s someone eking out a meager existence in the dry and stingy air of those magical, mystical mountains who is completely unfulfilled with their life and dreaming of the day when they can move to the United States to drive an Uber in the opulence of downtown Baltimore or the leafy quiet of an oxygen-bloated Wisconsin suburb.
In short, inspiration and purpose are both self-generated.
Me? The purpose of absolutely everything I do is to make a difference for people.
I do it at the grocery store, with my kids, my neighbors. If I’m talking to you, I’m working out how I might make some kind of difference in your day. A kind word; a helping hand; hell, sometimes it’s just eye contact and a smile. It’s what I’ve devoted my entire life to, and I love being this guy.
It’s the reason why I write books too, by the way.
So, what about you (and let’s keep this simple)? What could you make your life about in the area you picked earlier? (Hint—the more you make it about yourself, the more challenged you’ll be by the circumstances. The more it’s about impacting what’s going on around you, the more empowered you’ll get.)
Q. What is something you could make this area of your life be about?
Q. If you made this your purpose, what would you do differently (like, really DO differently, with new actions, new responses, etc.)? Keep in mind, this is about what you will do now rather than what you won’t do anymore.
Q. If you allowed this purpose to spread to other areas of your life, what areas would be most significantly affected and why?
Q. By being true to this purpose, what kind of human being would you get to be that you currently do not experience yourself as?
Q. What are the roadblocks (typical behaviors of yours that are self-destructive/indulgent or otherwise negative) that might get in the way of this purpose and that you’ll now have to be vigilant about?
Q. When the compulsion to act in this way arises, what will you do instead that is more aligned with your purpose?
Q. How will you know you have been successful in realizing your purpose every day?
YOUR PROMISE
Understanding that this newly stated purpose shapes everything I do, I promise . . .
Whenever I am tempted to react or return to my usual default behavior in the future, I commit to
In the words of the Roman philosopher Seneca, “The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”
Now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek to improve your life. It doesn’t mean that you can’t make radical change by reinventing your career or moving to another country or throwing yourself into some new passion or other. It simply means that the rut you find yourself in has less to do with your circumstances than it does with how you view and handle it.
Purpose—what your life is about—is always at stake.
With that in mind, perhaps it’s time to start giving some thought to what your life would look like if you lived it more purposefully.
Q. Let’s start with your career or business. If you were to start living with some clear intention, a spine from which you find inspiration and clarity, would you work the same hours or more or less? Would you put the same amount of effort and focus into your projects, or does having a purpose shift your attention?
Q. Start thinking about how your day would change if you were living with purpose. How you’d spend your free time, how much pride you’d take in your work, how you’d interact with your boss or clients or co-workers. How could you bring some life to these seemingly “ordinary” aspects of your life?
Q. This applies to your social life as well. How would your dating or intimate relationships change if you approached them with some real intention? Would you spend more or less time with your parents or children or friends?
Q. Again, run through your normal routine in your mind, and imagine what it’d look like if you made that change. Your hobbies apply here too. How do you spend your free time? With a more purposeful life, how would that change? Maybe you’d spend more time with your hobbies. Or waste less time on stuff that doesn’t contribute to living your life with intention.
A PURPOSE GREATER THAN YOURSELF
It’s all internal. You already have the ability to live life on purpose. You just have to change your thinking a bit.
When the purpose you create is greater than your day-to-day petty concerns, you are called to be. Be what? Be bolder, be more influential, be more outgoing or decisive or loving or industrious. When you have a purpose for what you are doing, it raises the bar of your participation in life. You are compelled to reach, to stretch, and to go beyond your most base concerns.
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
—George Bernard Shaw
In many ways, this single quote says it all.
Your purpose comes from you—it’s an invention, a dare you present yourself with and that you’ll have to remind yourself of over and over as you occasionally slip into the ordinary stream of mindless conversations and behaviors that most of us do when going about our lives. You have to hold yourself to account for your own purpose; no one is coming to save you or lift you up or inspire you. That’s your fucking job.
DEBRIEF
What I learned about myself from this section is: