Do we all really have a purpose?

I’ve spent my life wondering what my purpose is. Always feeling out of sorts. It seems to so many of us that other people have it ‘figured out’. Like it just comes easy to some to live successful, fulfilling, purpose filled lives. 

And maybe it does, maybe some people connect easier to themselves, maybe they really were given better tools to knowing themselves. What does that mean for those that feel lost, stuck? What will it require to find purpose and meaning?

Lets get into what purpose is or how I see it anyway, and this should shed some light on how we find it. 

In all my research and study of the spiritual world, along side the research and study of myself I would describe purpose as living in alignment with your essence. There will be a lot of explanation of explanations so strap in, I want the language I use to be clear. 

Essence is the part of us that is here from birth, the nature. It is the traits and characteristics of you that just are. It is the watcher of the world, the one that has always been you, observing everything you do. It is your intuition, the quiet voice of truth within.

Living side by side with essence is personality, the part you learn to be and create as you grow up, the nurture. This is your ego, all the ways in which you’ve learned to express your essence. It isn’t bad, ego gets a bad rep through most of the spiritual world these days but its really just the lens in which we see and experience the world. We cant live without it, we can only work to clearly see and understand it. I like to think of the ego as a filter, and if that filter is dirty and clogged then its really not working very well. If that filter is clean however, all of life’s purpose and experience can just flow through it. 

There it is again, purpose. If you are a person walking around living by mostly ego, then purpose may not be reaching you. You will be living by all the programs and constraints of your ego, all the ways you were shown to be. The deeper these programs run, the more you will hold onto to them and more you hold on, the more lost and stuck you may feel. Some people never question it of course, they just bury themselves deep into their ego and go about their lives. These are not the people that would have reacted to the title of this post. 

There is a way out.

I was heavily depressed most of my life, from childhood really and I think a lot of people in this world that suffer from depression are suffering because they are living a lie of themselves and they can feel it but they don’t know that this is what their problem is and they certainly don’t know their way out (This is not 100% of cases, I am not claiming this is the sole cause of depression, but in my own experience and from working with others, this is what I have seen many times). 

There is freedom from the prison you’re locked in. There are many teachings about it, from Jesus to buddha to yoga and a hundred more, so many paths. For me I find a lot of these ways to be outdated and inaccessible to a lot of people. I have huge respect for any teaching that reached far and wide but in my opinion a really good spiritual system is one that evolves as we discover further truths, not ones that relies on ancient dogmas, just because they are old. Ancient teachings tell me that humans have been feeling this need for deeper connection for a long time, they don’t tell me that because someone said it so long ago, it is truer than something said now. Of course, it may still be true, but age can’t be what defines truth. 

There are also many teachings of the 20th century that push towards a path of self awareness without devotion to an external god, or renunciation of the material world. This is what we need more of in todays world. Something that everyone can practice, and every can benefit from. Because living life in purpose is extraordinary, it feels like you’ve been given the cheat sheet to your own life and things just start to, well, make sense. It took me a long to find mine, and I want it for anyone that wants it. 

Being so damn selfish may lead you selflessness.

How did I actually find purpose? The short version, a lot of trial and error.  A lot of mistakes, I spent a lot of time living out of alignment. I couldn’t recognise alignment for a long time. I carried with me so many beliefs of what I should do, who I should be, what I should look like, what my life should look like. It took me a long time to sit down, shut up and really ask myself what I wanted. And even when I did, I couldn’t hear it, not for a while. I had to get through many layers before I could hone in on that small, quiet voice of intuition. Only to realise of course that I heard it all along, it was with me all along. I had been standing in its way, I had been putting all the things I think are right for me, right in front of it. For example, I had come to believe that purpose meant something big. People with purpose are here to be famous, to be huge. But thats not true. Living with purpose certainly means taking up space but it is not reserved for certain results. I think for the most part we associate purpose with things that directly save people or save the world. Its more subtle than that. Purpose is something you do entirely for yourself, and the result of all that giving to yourself is a gift for the rest of the world. For some that really might be activist causes, or speaking to the masses but at the root of purpose is what your essence is working on. It is the joy that is sparked and therefore followed. It is the fears that come up and instead of running from or covering those fears they are run towards and explored. It is the ‘difficult and hard’ elements of yourself that are softened and forgiven. It is the barriers to connections that are disabled. It is in the actions towards these types of things that bring purpose to our soul, and through these actions something is created. That is your purpose, that is your mission, that is what your essence is here on earth to do. 

Cracking open..

If you need something tangible to follow I want you to try for the next week of your life seeing when and where you feel excitement. Maybe you can’t even recognise it, try and see what excitement even feels like to you, and when you find it, follow it. This is the moment where aligned action comes in, this is the moment that tells the world and everyone around you that you are here to be you. It might be scary, it might ask you to do something you hadn’t thought of or even imagined for yourself, do it anyway, the answers you want are in following that feeling of excitement. It is normal to feel doubt, you may even feel a little mad but that little voice won’t tell you to do something you’re not ready for. 

If you have been living out of alignment your whole life it really might be difficult to hear, trust or go with that voice. I would urge to write about it then, if you are too stuck or unsure to take acton, write or sing or voice record your thoughts about it. If you are in this position, this process will take time. Healing is not an overnight process. Be gentle and patient with yourself, keep going and know that trying to find your way, is part of the way. 

You will have to go through some trial and error, and you will have to go through it over and over and again. A key part of living in purpose is embracing uncertainty because you will have to just trust and jump at some points. This is why it can be so hard for many of us because our homo sapiens brain isn’t designed to accept uncertainty, it goes against survival instinct. But we have reached a point in evolution where creation has become aware of itself, its a really beautiful time to be alive because of that. We have the opportunity, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US, to experience creation unfold in real time, we already are. 

So, to answer my question. Yes, I believe we all really do have purpose. We all have an expression that wants to come out. But, you don’t get to pick it. Its already written for you. That might disappoint some but its really where all the magic is. You just have to let it be, to quiet the rest of your busy self, accept what it is the world made you be and ride that wave like the majestic beast you are. This world is a place of endless possibility. The road is unknown but worth it. No, you are not too late, you have not missed the window. You are here to live your purpose until the day you die, if you’re still here, you’re not done. 

Keep eggsploring yourself.