And God said, “Let Us make liv­ing crea­tures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done.” And God cre­at­ed every liv­ing crea­ture that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. “What is the pur­pose of all this?” he asked polite­ly.

“Everything must have a pur­pose?” asked God.

“Certainly,” said man.

“Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this,” said God.

And He went away.*

I equate pur­pose with a rea­son for being as opposed to career or life goals, etc. It answers the ques­tion, “Why am I here?” Another word for it could be mis­sion, as in “What is my mis­sion in life?”

Although I often think about it, I do not get hung up by ask­ing “What is the mean­ing of life?” That is a huge philo­soph­i­cal ques­tion which may be com­plete­ly irrel­e­vant to hav­ing a con­tent­ed, pro­duc­tive, enrich­ing life. Much more impor­tant is the part that I am play­ing in my life, regard­less of its “mean­ing.”

Questioning why I am here and what I am sup­posed to do is the mark of seek­ers, per­son­al­i­ty types which include explor­ers, sci­en­tists, and artists. This group also includes many heal­ers and crazy peo­ple. They all exhib­it an under­ly­ing rest­less­ness which dri­ves them to ques­tion, dis­cov­er, and under­stand. It is impor­tant for such peo­ple to real­ize that they will always be dis­sat­is­fied to a cer­tain degree. Wonder is a hard mis­tress.

There are those of us to whom these ques­tions are irrel­e­vant. They dis­cov­ered ear­ly in life what they want­ed to do and then went about doing it. Ask them what their pur­pose in life was and they can tell you in very few words, if in fact they even both­ered to think about it at all. Their con­scious choic­es were not about what or why, but about who, how, when, and where. The ones I know seem to be pret­ty hap­py. They are the peo­ple who qui­et­ly keep the world run­ning, many of them in excel­lent, admirable ways. They are prob­a­bly not read­ing this blog.

The Hero’s Journey is usu­al­ly not under­tak­en by the above peo­ple. Contentment, com­fort, com­pla­cen­cy, and apa­thy are com­mon in those who are uncon­cerned with pur­pose. Inertia keeps them on a steady course, for bet­ter or worse. Seekers are by def­i­n­i­tion want­i­ng some­thing that they do not have. Something in their lives is sick, hurt­ing, bro­ken, or miss­ing. Even curios­i­ty is a thirst demand­ing to be quenched.

The word why can sig­nal some of the most painful expe­ri­ences in life. “Why me” is a clas­sic lament. However, those answer­ing why and what if ques­tions are almost total­ly respon­si­ble for the great leaps in human evo­lu­tion. A woman asks, “Is there some way I can find more food for my chil­dren?” The youngest prince is forced to find the elixir to heal the king because his old­er broth­ers ven­tured forth and nev­er returned. The young man liv­ing a bor­ing life on the farm acci­den­tal­ly dis­cov­ers a holo­graph­ic mes­sage and must flee after his fam­i­ly is killed by those try­ing to recov­er it. The Call, the rev­e­la­tion of pur­pose and the invi­ta­tion to the Hero’s Journey, often arrives accom­pa­nied by deep dis­sat­is­fac­tion, heart­break, dis­ease or death. Sometimes it is mere­ly sig­naled by a chron­ic sen­sa­tion of unease.

Many of us spend years, even decades, try­ing to dis­cov­er our pur­pose. Rather than look­ing far and wide for a scroll or guru who will tell you what your pur­pose is, you mere­ly need to look with­in at your deep­est needs and your behav­ioral val­ues. Put aside any “shoulds” that you have been con­di­tioned with by soci­ety or which you inher­it­ed from your fam­i­ly. Forget grand ideas like suc­cess, wealth, fame, true love, and world peace. Instead ask your­self, “What emo­tion­al, phys­i­cal, and spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ences do I want to have in my life?” Your respons­es to that ques­tion com­prise the vision, or what, of your pur­pose. 

When you have con­crete, per­son­al, judgement-​free items to fill in those blanks, then ask your­self, “What behav­iors and ways of being do I have to adopt that will allow me to man­i­fest those expe­ri­ences?” Be bold and cre­ative with these respons­es. Your way in the world may have to be rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent than what you are now doing. You may have to aban­don a life-​long course or walk away from impor­tant rela­tion­ships or risk rejec­tion by your tribe. You may have to chal­lenge major beliefs about your­self. You may very well find your­self on the road less trav­eled. This process will sug­gest your next actions, the how by which you will move toward the life that you desire.

If you have done this process suc­cess­ful­ly, you will most like­ly be very uncom­fort­able ini­tial­ly. You may sud­den­ly be face to face with a great fear which you have been hid­ing from. You may be over­whelmed by ela­tion or a sense of unbound­ed free­dom, as some­one just released from prison. You may even feel crushed by an oblig­a­tion to change some­thing that you have been avoid­ing your entire life. 

For many, if not most, of us, pur­pose ain’t pret­ty.

However, when I have a clear mis­sion in my life, I can see in the dark and feel around cor­ners. It is a com­pass, a life­line, a port in the storm, and a guid­ing star to help me steer my ship. It acts like a gyroscope,a sense of bal­ance, and when I stray from the path that it lights for me, I feel it. It could urge me into dan­ger, and it may lead me home.

That is why my mis­sion must be clear and pre­cise, because I have inten­tion­al­ly tak­en the wheel of my life. I wel­come the feed­back of this accu­rate instru­ment, this mea­sure­ment of my progress, because I am now total­ly account­able for my results. While the word respon­si­bil­i­ty is often used to assign blame, it lit­er­al­ly means the abil­i­ty to respond. Whether I reach the promised land or sail off the edge of the world, the course I set is mine.

Those of us with a con­scious pur­pose will encounter crises in our lives. They may involve strug­gles with oth­ers or our­selves, endur­ing wounds which must be healed, or head­ing calls to cre­ate which can­not be ignored in spite of heavy costs. For us, life is an adven­ture, with all of its dan­gers and oppor­tu­ni­ties. The alter­na­tive is bore­dom. Win or lose, we would not have it any oth­er way.

*from Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonegut