I lost my purpose

A case of mistaken desire

A few years ago, I published an article in which I stated I’d found my life’s purpose. Fast forward a few years, and I say I was wrong.

The ‘purpose statement’ in question:

                “Make a positive difference in people’s lives”

The article was on the importance of a business having a purpose that can scale, verse personal purpose which can remain quite niche.

Plus, having had Simon Sinek quoted at me so many times I went along with the idea we need a purpose to feel fulfilled in our lives. Being transparent here: I’d never actually read his books or listened to his stuff myself, so my take on this was based purely on hearsay and I still don’t know how accurate this hearsay is.

I had been pondering the statement for some time, it felt good to me. Then it seemed to me, if I was to position myself as some kind of authority on purpose, I needed to walk the talk and find myself a purpose. So, I started calling it my purpose. As purposes go though, it’s pretty vague. I didn’t really know what I meant by it, and still don’t.

I now have a different take on the need for purpose. Business needs a purpose, as a proxy for a heart, for people to connect to. You don’t need a personal purpose for that, for the simple reason you have a real, beating, feeling heart.

Nor do you need to find your personal purpose to understand your reason for being in the universe. It doesn’t matter why you’re here, all that matters is that you are here.

So, what is personal purpose?

Our hearts feel stuff. One of the things we feel is desire. When we like something, we desire it. If you have a purpose that makes you feel good when you do things in accordance with it, what you have is a desire.

One of the Buddha’s key teachings was desire being a source of suffering. I have drastically oversimplified this teaching, however, on this logic, if you suffer in some way when things don’t go according to your ‘purpose’, you feel that because you’re not getting what you desire.

So, purpose on a personal level is really nothing more than a desire for an idea we’ve had for what we’d like to achieve in our lives. When I thought I’d found my purpose, what I had found was an idea that gave me a sense of meaning. A desire.

One thing my ‘purpose’ meant for me, was that if I had to do something quite reasonable and justified for my own good at the expense of others, I had a hard time doing this. Causing a negative outcome for someone else, was against my purpose. So, I’d find myself self-sacrificing and this is not a way to live. The idea I’d defined as my purpose wasn’t serving me, so it had to go.

I recently let go of the idea of having a defined purpose entirely. That’s not to say I don’t have desires motivating me; things that provide a ‘why’ for my life. I most certainly do (you may rest easy Mr Sinek). It’s just I don’t consider them part of some divine purpose that the universe is tasking me with. They’re things I desire. Desires that sometimes lead me to suffer, desires that could change, desires that may or may not come to pass.

I’m finding that accepting this, embracing ‘purposelessness’ and letting go of attachment to what I desire in life, is truly liberating.

Cover image: Image by vecstock on Freepik