What Is Your Purpose in Life?
It took me 55 years to figure it out
A friend of mine is currently finding himself in a sort of midlife crisis. A gifted writer and a man of many accomplishments, he’s questioning what his purpose in life is.
Just recently, he managed to check off several more things on his bucket list. Now, after the initial euphoria has worn off, he feels empty and isn’t sure what to do with himself.
I was like him, only a few years ago. While I had learned in my late twenties that worldly success and money alone wouldn’t make me happy, I then went on to pursue things of a more New Age, self-improvement, self-actualization kind of nature. Fame and fortune definitely still played a secondary role, too… maybe I’d become a famous spiritual author like Wayne Dyer or Neale Donald Walsch, inspiring millions of people with my books.
Because that’s what you were supposed to do, right? Give your life meaning, find that elusive purpose yourself… because, we were told, it’s different for everyone. You are the master of your own destiny and all that. It’s all about what you make of it, so you do you and take your life into your own hands.
Overall, I spent close to 40 years searching for that purpose, that “mission” I’d been told was waiting for me. I read untold numbers of psychological self-help books and New Age tomes like How to Find Your Purpose in Life. I booked expensive and intensive workshops and retreats with the greatest motivational and spiritual thinkers of our time. At one point, I even had a (Native American) “guru.”
But somehow, the nagging doubt remained: Is this really all there is?
Right after absorbing all the wisdom that was imparted on me, I always felt amazing, euphoric, like I’d finally found all the answers—or at least got close enough to progress from there. But the euphoria always wore off quickly, leaving me to look for the next step in my endless pursuit of the meaning of life.
Then, finally, in 2020, at the age of 55, I received the definitive answer.
I discovered the greatest secret of all.
I learned what my (and your) purpose in life is…
…and I hated it.