What is Purpose?
In this article I differentiate Purpose, a term used inflationary, from its more modest sibling Meaning. Whereas Purpose is an attractor, calling us into manifesting a latent future, Meaning refers to the resonance effect between what is important to an individual (matches their values) and the values they meet or do in the world.
Purpose is the new Black. Every week I seem to get an invitation to speak at a conference about Purpose, to do a podcast about Purpose, join a newly founded Purpose community. Friends, working as coaches, organisational developers or therapists, tell me about an avalanche of clients approaching them to find their individual purpose or identifying and strengthening the Purpose of their company.
Me and my friends are not alone. At the time of writing,„Purpose“ features in over 1167 TED Talks. The Global Purpose Movement connects activists and social entrepreneurs and helps them find their purpose. Germany’s Purpose Foundation is lobbying for a new legal entity to allow for alternative forms of ownership and financing. The UK organisation On Purpose, helps people who put „purpose before profit“ to find „work that matters and work you care about“. In Frederic Laloux influential book Re-Inventing Organizations ``evolutionary purpose“ understood as „the difference a company or institution wants to make in the community it operates in, as well as in the marketplace it serves’ ‘, features prominently as a new way to design strategy.
Yet despite all the inflationary talk, Purpose itself remains an elusive concept. When listening to others speak about the concept, I often feel that we are using the same words, but mean something quite differently. My aim in this article is to dive deeper into Purpose and differentiate it from other related concepts, especially Meaning. My understanding in a nutshell: Purpose is a much deeper evolutionary and cosmological concept, often requiring intense contemplative practice. Meaning or Mission on the other hand can apply to a much broader range of activities and doesn’t necessarily have an evolutionary dimension. Purpose comes from Within. Meaning or mission are often experienced in relation to the outside: I feel my Purpose, while something gives me meaning or I am on my mission.
Let’s look at this in more detail:
In colloquial use, Purpose often comes up, when people are describing their aim to find an occupation, a job, a profession or path in life which involves more than making money, being secure or following the neoliberal rat race of higher, bigger, better. The image evoked is of a post-materialistic lifestyle, which cares for the environment and social relations. There seems to be a new class of purposeful jobs, all of them contributing to progressive ecological, social, economic and political change. In this way Purpose appears as a blanket term for all the people and institutions working towards a new paradigm, which is sustainable, repairable, regenerative, human-centered and resilient.
For some people in the Purpose-bubble, Purpose is not only connected to a change of industry; quitting the oil industry or investment banking and moving into urban farming or teaching Yoga. It also seems to involve an inner transformation of the individual. In order to experience Purpose, people must leave the superficial and extrinsic behind, seeking a deeper, more authentic and caring connection to the world, to communities and the planet. In this way, Purpose is directly related to a new value system, less identified with competition and prestige, but with inner peace and the „greater good“.
In all the above cases, we might as well speak about „meaning“, or what in German is called „Sinn“. Purpose, in my understanding, has another dimension, which I will outline next.
Purpose versus Meaning
Many individuals and organizations are engaged in meaningful activities. To experience something as meaningful points to a certain level of subjective satisfaction. Working as a nurse or helping an elderly neighbor across the street can be meaningful. As can be designing a new tool or algorithm, giving a lecture or planting a tree. A company can have meaningful goals when it contributes something other people value and need — be it shoes, solar energy or nuclear power.
As this last juxtaposition shows, meaning can be highly subjective — what appears meaningful for one person (renewable or nuclear energy) can be meaningless or even harmful for somebody else. Meaning is the resonance effect between what is important to me (matches my values) and the values of what I meet or do in the world. Thus jobs are experienced as meaningful if there is a large enough overlap between my values and that of the company I work for. Also, many very different things can be meaningful — the daily walk which keeps me healthy, my friendships, my job as an accountant or my volunteering at a local homeless shelter.
Purpose on the other hand refers to something more specific. „Finding your Purpose“ has not necessarily anything to do with engaging in a profession or an activity you like or which is valued by others. Nor does it necessarily involve doing something we believe, in our current mindset, to be good for us, society or the planet. Instead it points to my individual (or in the case of a group, collective) connection to a higher attractor, or North Star, which guides one’s perceptions and activities.
Purpose is an attractor, calling us into manifesting a latent future.
It is intimately connected to an evolutionary conception of life, which sees reality unfolding and the future emerging step by step, albeit not in a linear fashion. In this understanding, the world is a self-organised system, which has certain emergent properties.
Emergence and the latent future hints us towards a manifestation process that — step by step — embodies higher complexity and intelligence. Here we are confronted with the question of what exactly we are embodying — is this a process of organic self-organisation or is it following a higher consciousness or divine impulse?
These properties are not predetermined, but also not random. They follow a certain direction, such as the simple observable fact that in the course of evolution, life has become more complex. To give a concrete contemporary example: we see a strong trend in organisations and companies to reduce structures on the outside (hierarchies, formal roles, processes etc.) thereby nudging us to rely more on our inner structures for security and our communication for orientation and coordination. Many social scientists have studied these and similar processes, such as Foucault, who showed us how complex societies establish new internal controlling mechanisms as a counterbalance to increasing freedom and individuation.
History thus has a certain directionality. Not in the sense that there is only one possible outcome. Not at all. But among the uncountable possible directions life can take, there are some more likely to manifest than others. And among those there are those manifestations which are the consequence of our historical past, and some which emerge and come to us truly “from the future”.
These latent futures are accessible, they speak to those who care and dare to listen. And it is at this intersection between an individual and the emerging future, tomorrow’s world, that Purpose is situated. Purpose acts like a magnet, which individuals and collectives can plug into and which enables them to manifest ideas and structures which in turn create a new future for the world as a whole. One’s individual purpose or the purpose of a collective such as a community or an institution can thus be understood as actively walking along the path and into the direction of what wants to emerge in the world. Purpose is the magnetic North Star, attracting people to serve as midwives for the future.
This sounds pretty lofty. Which it is. But let’s step back and navigate the topic by asking a few questions, such as:
- What does Purpose feel like? How do people experience it for themselves?
- How can you connect to your Purpose?
- What is the role of Purpose?
- Can Purpose be judged from the outside? What is the relation to success?
- How is Purpose related to others?
- Can Purpose be measured?
During conversations with the spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl, as well as somatic coaches, integral therapists and other people studying the „making of life“, a number of common perceptions and experiences came up.
One surprising indicator for living aligned with your purpose seems to be the fact that you are not actually spending a lot of time thinking about the topic at all. At least for people with a certain degree of reflexivity, this lack of concern often indicates an alignment with purpose. The worrying question “What is my Purpose? What am I here for?” only seems to arise in the gap between one’s felt experience of life and its Purpose.
What does Purpose feel like?
Many people mention bodily sensations when describing their experience of Purpose. Signposts can be visceral excitement, like a buzzing in every cell, a feeling of full aliveness. There is a sense of excitement, appearing, for example, as a deep interest in a certain topic or experience. Energy seems to rise and awareness and presence is strengthened. There is „flow“ — a collapsing of the conventional experience of space time, where the mind is highly focused and positively alert. In that moment, communication is very direct, there is no conventional story or narrative which the mind tells itself. When new thoughts and perceptions appear, they are experienced as very real, fresh and true.
Others speak about their perception of purpose as „being fully myself“. But this is not a feeling of isolation, but rather of seamless connection between oneself and other people, the task at hand, nature or whatever normally is designated to be „outside“. In purpose we experience a full alignment between Self and the world.
Another indicator seems to be that once in touch with Purpose, the end result of a task or action is of no concern. Instead, people are identified with the process of something new, which wants to happen and emerge.
The experience of Purpose is not necessarily a positive one. It can even be experienced as negative and uncomfortable. People speak about being in places and going through processes which don’t feel good, yet nevertheless seem to be “right”. This feeling of rightness seems to have something to do with an experience of deeper presence, of being connected to something essential and fundamental. The experience has roots.
In contrast, a negative experience not connected to Purpose, feels very different: people speak about them as having a stale and flat taste and aftertaste. These experiences might be called two-dimensional, as they are not rooted in the lively fabric of life and have no space around them.
All of this first shows up in the body as an inner movement — as physical, emotional, spiritual and energetic sensations. Mental activities in the form of coherent thoughts and reflections come later, as a later stage of the experience. They often take the form of making sense of and legitimizing the previously sensed and felt experience.
Purpose, for the people we have been talking to, is a navigational instrument, which guides them along their path.
How can you connect to your Purpose?
Purpose is driven by an inner movement, independent of outside expectations and rewards. It can only be observed and unfold in a free space. In my experience and that of many other people practicing contemplative methods, be it meditation, mindfulness, guided prayer, journaling or others, we can observe inner movements which speak to us. If we are in a state of full presence with all that is — without dissociating, avoiding or projecting — we can connect to a higher creative force. This is the bottom of the “U” Otto Scharmer describes in his Theory U. We can access new information, latently available in the universe. Mystics and wisdom teachers often describe this new information as „light“. Light is the energetic connection to our soul and through that to the divine, the creative force of the universe, the Source, God or whatever you like to call it.
With this connection come new insights, sometimes in the form of a quiet whisper, at other times as a very distinct „knowing“, which points you into the direction of the next step in your potential and development.
This process of contacting and manifesting Purpose depends on the ability of the human being to become a channel and vessel for new information, or light. Above I mentioned the capacity of people to create space in themselves and energetically connect to light. To different degrees, we all distort reality, as we all have parts where our perception is blocked. These blockades are the result of overwhelming personal and/or collective experiences, which our nervous system protected us from by contracting and going numb. This originally healthy reaction can, when it sustains itself over a longer period and is not healed, result in a deep traumatisation, limiting our capacity to open ourselves to light and the guidance of Purpose.
It’s not always easy to discern whether you are aligned to your Purpose. I know from myself that in times of great movement, it might feel as if I am on track, even if I am not. Asking a somatic coach how she recognizes unhealthy movement, she said that it can show up in a number of ways. For example, people are addicted to what they are doing, instead of freely moving around in their lives. This addiction might well be the story they tell themselves and others about themselves. Others are very preoccupied with the past instead of also looking into the future. Constant repetition is another sign, such as people having one accident after the other, always finding themselves in the same kind of harmful relationship dynamics etc.
There is another important aspect of finding one’s Purpose: Your ability to stay with the non-knowing. If we are honest with ourselves, we very often don’t know what to do, or what is happening in our (working) lives. Purpose involves chance, luck or divine grace, whatever you want to call it. Even if we listen carefully, it often doesn’t speak to us, or we are unable to hear. We then need to develop the capacity to stay with the resulting tension, instead of leaping to a conclusion too quickly. If we step to the next action too early, we might be able to release the tension, but steer away from our Purpose.
What is the role of Purpose?
In my understanding, Purpose is intimately tied to an individual’s or a collective’s task and expression in life. The notion that someone has a task presumes the existence of a higher intelligence and a metaphysical dynamic to life which surpasses our secular, scientific understanding. If there is an evolutionary principle guiding the development of life, then Purpose provides the fuel. As described above, it exerts a „pull“ mechanism for humans to seek and search, change and transform themselves and each other. Purpose is the whisper, the attractor, the magnet of one’s individual development, which then feeds into the collective world making.
If you follow this magnet and are able to stay open and attuned to its movement, more and more information will be available to you, in-forming, i.e. taking form, manifesting in your life. The initial whisper can become a deeply held knowledge. Once it is able to energetically go through/ inform your whole body, you can act from it, speak about it and create new structures in the world. These come in myriad shapes, as a new book, work of art, company or political movement,which then provides the launching pad for many other people with similar interests. These new manifestations are thus important structures for the emergent to take roots in society and scale the once peripheral experience so that it becomes a new plateau for human development.
In wisdom traditions Purpose is often linked to the notion of the soul. The Kabbalah has the concept of a „tikun“, which refers to a crack, a challenge, a stain or an imbalance. Our task as human beings is to integrate or heal the tikun in order to become whole. The tikun is the higher reason, the attractor, the magnet of one’s individual development. Once whole, the soul can go up, i.e. the person can die, as its life’s purpose has been fulfilled.
Can Purpose be judged from the outside? What is the relation to success?
How can we know if someone is following their Purpose? The people I talked to are in agreement that Purpose has little, if anything to do with outside success, money or public recognition. Of course, there are people and institutions which are aligned with their Purpose who are also successful. But we all know many people who are wealthy and/or famous, but whose lives and actions feel empty of any Purpose.
What about Donald Trump? Could he claim to be aligned with his Purpose, experiencing the physical symptoms of Purpose mentioned above, such as flow, excitement or intuition? In my definition, he would fail on at least one important criteria, which is the inner guidance mentioned above. It seems very obvious that Trump is not free of the outside world, in fact, he defines himself very much in relation to the world. His actions are guided by external stimuli, such as the need for validation and thus don’t qualify as Purpose.
There is a simple reason why success and Purpose often don’t go together. In our world, success very often depends on repetition, on someone perfecting and improving on something which already exists. Purpose on the other hand is linked to emergence, giving energy to something which might be completely outside of the mainstream and public regimes of recognition.
How is Purpose related to others?
Even though Purpose has an interior, metaphysical quality and reveals itself as an inner movement, independent of outside factors, there is an interesting twist: Purpose seems to be something which always exists in relation. This is beautifully recognized by Bruce Springsteen in his 2018 Broadway show, accessible on Netflix. Towards the end of the documentary, Springsteen thanks his audience for giving him his Purpose. His songs are meant to be heard by an audience. In a world which is highly interconnected (even if we think we are separated), you being received is always part of the Purpose.
People living their purpose often have a magnetic quality, attracting others. This comes from the fact that they are aligned in themselves. By this I mean that their mental, emotional and physical bodies are radiating a coherent message to their surroundings. Compare this to people whose mind, emotions and body all signal different messages and it comes as no surprise that people with coherent signals exert a stronger magnetism.
In this way Purpose can also be infectious: If you are feeling on track, fully aligned, and in a heightened state of energy, you most likely will have a transmission which attracts others to you and your work. This happens in cases where someone has a fresh idea and talks to other people about it, who in turn are immediately also inspired and want to contribute to it.
Sometimes the resonance between purpose and other beings can be asynchronous, as in the case of many now famous people, who died before receiving any wider recognition. Think of Vincent van Gogh, Emily Dickinson or Nicholas Copernicus. But also think of people like Jesus, Mohammed or Buddha, who had such a strong message, that it gained in momentum and stayed relevant over the centuries and now informs the lives of billions of people.
But reception can also go completely unrecognized, as the many people who sent authentic impulses to others, without ever gaining any public visibility. Thus a purposeful life can look very ordinary from the outside, be it as a parent, a gardener or a caring nurse.
It can also consist of taking full responsibility for one’s own deep trauma, psychological or physical wounds and disabilities. In these cases, a serious commitment to self-care and healing might be a life’s calling and Purpose. If we believe that all of life is connected and networked, this ability of one individual to responsibly take care of their wounds, will have a much greater impact on life itself as we currently acknowledge. One individual’s capacity to heal their own trauma will change the course of history, if even in a minimally visible way, as the trauma is not passed on to the next generation.
Can Purpose be measured?
Following this understanding, there are no two people with the same Purpose in life. Different people have different cracks to integrate in life. Purpose is not mono- but multi-perspectival.
Given its extreme relativity, are we ever able to identify and judge the Purpose of another human? The only way to do so would be by establishing an objective measurement. This is what the religious faiths have done with, for example, the 10 Commandments of the Christian faith or the four mandates of the Sikh. Follow them all and you are on track. To provide measurable criteria is also the subject of diverse theories of ethics, from utilitarianism (outcome justifies means) to deontological ethics (means are primary, consequences secondary).
But declaring a certain perspective and specific rules to be of highest value, fixes life and thus goes against the important insight of systems thinking and mystical wisdom that everything in life is connected, interdependent and in constant motion.
But how can we orient ourselves, if everything is in movement?
Both the system’s view of life, as well as the wisdom traditions presume a 4-dimensional world, in which every being is connected and interdependent. Thus every move you are making changes the whole picture. From this perspective, the world is a big puzzle and every living organism is one piece of the puzzle. Now when I move towards my place, others will move as well, until we all fall into our places. In this multi-dimensional world, there is little space for fixed and linear judgements, such as right and wrong, good or bad. It is impossible to reach a goal by walking your path in a linear, premeditated way, as the movement of others will constantly impact your own. As in the famous circular fable of the Chinese farmer, who’s son broke his leg (misfortune) only not to be drafted into the war (fortune) etc., we can never know the consequences of our actions, as just as misfortune can turn into good fortune, so can a good intention lead to bad results. The future is too unpredictable to force an outcome, so everything must be perceived as neutral.
In such a mobile and fluid world, the only orientation we have is a felt sense of alignment or not-alignment. This sense of “being in the right place” or “doing the right thing” is never oriented towards a final end-point, but moves by navigating one step at a time. Thus it might make more sense to speak of „purposing“, as a verb, instead of purpose as a noun. „Purposing“ refers to the constant movement. Purposing is thus primarily not a What, but a How. By being in touch with new information emerging, I walk the next step and from there listen anew.
What does this mean for individuals and companies?
If you follow my arguments, that meaning and Purpose are two overlapping, yet distinct things, you may want to differentiate them also for yourself.
As a founder or leader in a company, you might want to be more modest. Do you really want to invite your colleagues to a metaphysical and contemplative journey (pursuing Purpose)? Or are you satisfied with being honest about your work and its impact, pledging to “do no harm” to the environment, your employees and larger social networks? The latter can also be more ambitious, in that you may want to work towards a new paradigm of ecological sustainability and a human-centered work-culture. In all of the latter cases, I would rather speak about meaning.
The same applies to individuals. Do you have a deep interest in exploring yourself and life as such, then go on the Purpose trail. But beware that this might very well entail renouncing material wealth or social recognition, plunging into great stretches of not-knowing. Or are you — sincerely, but more modestly — looking to reach beyond your immediate self-interests, aspiring to contribute meaningfully to a larger Good, to the wellbeing of society and the environment? Again, in this case, the Meaning-Trail is yours.
This more modest wording is not only a matter of style, but of substance. Because the Purpose discourse, used inflationary and in a normative way (Find your Purpose, or otherwise you are worthless!), casts a new dark shadow. As the philosopher Byung Chul-Han has brilliantly argued in his work on the Burnout Society, we are currently creating new pressures for people to be and portray themselves in a certain way. This is the latest stage of a long historical movement, whereby complex social systems require ever more subtle self-control mechanisms of its subjects.
The early modern “disciplinary society” analysed by Foucault, controlled its subjects by subjecting them to the minute control, monitoring and standardization of the institutions of the nation state (hospitals, prisons, bureaucracy). The “achievement society” of the post-war industrial age (in German: Leistungsgesellschaft) attributed value only to individuals who worked hard and gained material rewards.
The new turn towards a Purpose society demands from its citizens that they develop their positive inner competencies, including their orientation around a felt sense of higher Purpose. This holds a great potential, i.e. to be plugged into the creative emergence of the future which we described above. But it also comes with new oppressions, which are higher and subtler than the preceding demands. For those who don’t “feel it”, don’t connect with a higher sense of self and society, who find it difficult to be “authentic, whole human beings”, the Purpose discourse exerts a new pressure, a new arena in which to fail. They will feel manipulated and surveilled, not only any more with regards to their behaviour as in the previous regimes, but now in the realm of their innermost being*.
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*For a longer and very inspiring treatment of this topic, check out Hanzi Freinacht’s The Nordic Ideology, 2019.
