The word purpose is a bit loaded. Depending on context, it could refer to ones’ calling or vocation. Or more mysterious yet, to serve God or live your Dharma.
How often do you hear of people proudly professing that they’ve found theirpurpose?
“What is your purpose?” is a question that opens worlds. As such, it has the potential to be a lived question, as Rilke described.
Reflecting on the nature of purpose in this morning’s pages, it occurred to me to look behind the word. What is needed to be presumed in order for the word to make sense? I could be wrong of course, many of my morning musings probably are... I think the word purpose is built on an underlying assumption of movement. In other words, a motionless, static object can’t have a purpose. Your mind may think: “chair! a chair is motionless, and serves its purpose when I sit on it.” And so it is. But isn’t what we mean by purpose, as applied to a human, a little different? The chair is about utility. It was built with the purpose of providing utility to the customer. It was not built with the purpose of providing purpose to the customer. In sum, the chair is indeed useful when my purpose leads me to rest my body. The chair is an artefact of evolution, it is not an agent of evolution.
But you are.
Being American, and an English speaking native, I feel responsible here, to mention the nature in which English “thingifies” things. It is a noun-centered language. Therefore, a word like purpose becomes a “thing” in the English speaking mind. A person, place or thing, an imagined fixed magnetic north. Against my linguistic entrainment, I want to argue for a notion of purpose that is motion-based, or at least motion-sensitive, that does not depend on a fixed position.
I also think there’s a harmful role floating around the collective that says: if we’ve found our purpose, bad things won’t happen to us. If we’re a good person, our life will be good and so on.
When we’re in our right minds, we know that is not the case. Good people suffer. Awesome people struggle. Brilliant people can be crippled by fear and inadequacy. Whoever said life was meant to be smooth has not lived a very full life! We are meant to struggle and fail and make mistakes and feel pain and loss; just as we are meant to triumph, learn and connect joyously and authentically. To stay the path that is ours, to walk in a way that honors our truth, it can be valuable to claim this relationship to a movement-based purpose. One that sticks with you irrespective of your bank-balance, accolades and levels of comfort.
The shared spaces we inhabit can be turbulent and noisy, there are so many things that distract us and alter our paths.
In our movement across time, we come into relationship with life in infinite ways: from daily decisions, self-talk, obligations and other people. Getting distracted is part of being alive in today’s world. When we are chronically distracted - or scared or stressed - we cannot live well. We cannot create, imagine, innovate or discover… Being in relationship to our purpose is like having a compass in our pocket. It says: “despite the things happening, beyond my control, I am making the choices that are aligned to my “why.” And if I suffer consequences, that is the price for (insert your value of choice: freedom, love, authenticity, etc.)." This compass can serve as a sort of gut-check back to OK’ness. How we are moving, what is driving us? With enough awareness of that force, we can come to our “why.”
It can feel a little brazen to claim our purpose out loud. Maybe because of the way the modern world exploits our gluttony for perfection and “never-quite-enough-ing.” We’re sold endlessly on this word. We’re sold on the importance of the seeking, but less so on the actual claiming.
I dare you to give it a shot! For inspiration, I’ll share mine here:
My purpose is to harmonize my body, soul and spirit in loving emanation. Because (my why), I am most at peace, most fulfilled, most generous when I’m aligned to life and relating in harmony.
The verb “to harmonize” indicates that there will be times of dissonance, but the aim is for harmony.
Deep exhale.
What is your why? What makes you feel most yourself? How can you frame that why into a purpose that adapts and moves with you as you relate to life? Give claiming it a shot!!
