Where can you find your purpose?
Is it a mission you’re supposed to complete?
Is it finding the right job?
Is it following your passion?
Suppose you don’t feel passionate about anything? Or you’re not doing quite the right job? Or you have no idea of your mission, even if you feel there is one out there somewhere for you?
What are you supposed to do then?
You can wait, but for how long?
You can try really hard to find it, but do you even know where to look?
You can ask someone else, but how much do they really know about you?
And then you feel off track, or that vague sense that you’re supposed to be doing something else, but you don’t know what it is. You’re on a search for purpose.
The ironic thing is that the more you search for purpose outside of yourself the more elusive it becomes.
I was working with someone who had a very demanding job. She felt uneasy about the fact that she wasn’t doing her purpose, but had decided she’d have to wait until she retired because she needed the money and didn’t want to give up her job. When I questioned her more deeply about what her purpose was, she said she wanted to experience inner peace and share that with other people. It seemed to me that her highly demanding workplace was the perfect environment for her to develop inner peace. And her role included responsibility for the wellbeing of the entire office, so she was surrounded by opportunities to share any peace she could experience.
This is so often the case. When you’re looking for the right time or opportunity to do your purpose you’re looking in the wrong place. Your true purpose is always something you can do right now. Whether you’re fundamentally about love, freedom, wisdom, peace, joy, potential, creativity or something else, these are all qualities you can take with you to the best and worst job. You can practise them whether you have a passion or not.
The interesting thing is that the more peace, joy or freedom you experience the better jobs you find, the more passionate you become and the more you discover your mission. So it all adds up in the end.
