Why am I writing about purpose?

In the beginning this came from a place of loneliness.

I have wondered so much about my purpose in life. I’ve read a lot and thought a *whole lot* about it. But all that thinking had got me precisely nowhere, except more confused.

The image that comes into my mind is of sitting in an office in London, surrounded by colleagues working away on their screens. I felt like I had lost the plot. I had no direction I was following and no idea what I wanted. I had a good job, but I didn’t enjoy it. In fact, sometimes, I deeply resented it.

When I looked at the people above me who were ultimately in my career path, I felt like a misfit.

I wondered if I was the only one thinking this way and I worried that all this thinking about a greater purpose was just extremely self-indulgent. On the face of it a lot of things were going right in my life. From the outside I should have been grateful. But things didn’t fit.

It’s easy to carry on, just to exist and not to live.

So last autumn I started some conversations. I wanted to know if other people had felt the same way I had and what they had done about it. Since then I’ve interviewed an author, an entrepreneur, a philosopher, a very modern Buddhist monk, a blind explorer and many others. This year I’m on mission to interview 100 people about purpose, and I’ll share each story online.

Maybe you’ve got to a point where you’re feeling stuck, or you’re wondering what next. Or maybe you feel like you have all the elements of a good life lined up, but somehow it just doesn’t fit.

I’m writing about purpose for anyone else who might be in that same situation, looking around their office and wondering: “does anyone else wonder why we’re here?”, “what’s the point in this?”, or “why this? And why not something else?”

We have more options in our lives than ever before. It’s liberating and totally overwhelming at the same time. And when there are so many potential paths you can choose, how do you choose just one? How do you know you’re on the right path? — These are the questions that can get you so far inside your own head you can’t think straight.

The one thing I have learnt is that purpose isn’t a destination. I used to think think that one day I would ‘discover’ my purpose and it would be like finding Mr Right; everything would fall into place. But it’s not like that. It’s more complex, it’s more difficult, but it’s also much more interesting. It’s a journey and a process and it’s a lot easier if you have people you can talk to.

I think a lot of us go through shades doubt about our purpose in life. It’s a disorientating place to be. But the more interesting thing is how people come through it. Sometimes that means living a different life in the end than the one that you thought.

So, if you’re lost, start the conversation. Pull the thread, because you never know where it might lead.