A Thought Exercise For Finding Your Life's Purpose

A lot of people my age (early twenties) are struggling to find their purpose in life. I'm set to graduate from college in May of the upcoming year and many of my peers feel terrified at the prospect of graduation because they still don't know what they want to do with their lives and they thought that they'd at least come up with it by the end of their four years at a university. Because I hear this panic echoing throughout my campus, I've developed a sensitivity for it and noticed that it's not just soon-to-be college grads with this problem, but many young adults and even middle-aged people and beyond feel like they're just running a rat race, making the wheel spin with all their effort, but not getting anywhere that they want to be. I suspect this is the source of the "mid-life crisis." People my age panic because they don't know what their deepest hopes and dreams are and then when they get to be middle-aged they panic because they are contemplating their mortality and regretting that they still aren't fulfilling the deepest desires of their heart. They don't want their lives to be a waste. The natural solution is to buy a motorcycle, have an affair, or do something else that feels "wild" but that "doesn't quite" fill the needs of the heart.

I am writing this for those of you who are feeling the panic and who don't want to say woefully at the end of your lives, "Well that was just a big waste of time!" I couldn't imagine a more horrifying regret than to look back at the end of your days on a wasted life. The problem probably isn't that you don't work hard enough either. The problem isn't that you're lazy and aren't willing to put all the effort you can into really making your hopes and dreams come true. Speaking from my experience as a millennial growing up in middle-class America, I can definitely say that most of the people I've known are almost always busy. I'm sure many people who would look back and feel that they had wasted their lives won't feel that way because they spent their lives sitting around doing nothing. Rather, they'll resent all the work they did that paid the bills, but didn't bring them an inch closer to true, heartfelt happiness. The real solution then, is to take an honest look inside and discover what would really make us happy. This solution is either not an obvious one, or else an unpleasant one, or both. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people unsure of what it is they want to do with their lives, what it is that would bring them lasting happiness.


Photo by: Gecko (seriously visit her blog- she's an amazing photographer)

We must begin our search in the heart. St. Macarius said of the heart, "The heart is but a small vessel; and yet dragons and lions are there, and there poisonous creatures and all the treasures of wickedness; rough, uneven paths are there, and gaping chasms. There likewise is God, there are the angels, the heavenly cities and the treasures of grace; all things are there." The Desert Fathers of the Early Church often spoke of the individual's heart and soul as a microcosm, a vast and even bewildering place for us to enter. This is why introspection is so often unsuccessful, because at the gate to the heart we find ourselves blocked by "dragons and lions... poisonous creatures... rough, uneven paths... and gaping chasms." These prevent us from finding what we seek, "God... the angels... heavenly cities... treasures of grace." This is a powerful metaphor, but it likely needs some explanation in order to be practically useful to you in your own journey of introspection to discover your life's purpose.

The "heavenly cities" and "treasures of grace" represent what will truly satisfy us. They are the secret things of our heart that we must seek and understand in order to find true happiness in our lives. I believe that these quite literally include and are in fact totally centered on God, Who is the highest End towards which all lesser ends are only a means. If you disbelieve in God or doubt my assertion, you can still find your life's purpose by using the thought exercise described below, which does not require you to believe in God, though without a theistic view of the world, I believe you will have trouble logically accounting for why it works or for the existence of "purpose" and "meaning" in the first place. Moving on: the dragons, lions, and other obstacles in the metaphor are the doubts, fears, worries, temptations, addictions, distractions and other things that we give heed to and thereby forfeit the treasure that could be and ought to be ours. So the obvious thing to do is remove the obstacles and then you will find the treasure, your life's purpose. How does one do this? By using the following thought exercise:


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Imagine that you won the lottery and now have two hundred million dollars. Or better yet, imagine that you have discovered a magic wand and that you could wave it and instantly have the life of your dreams, the perfect life that would make you the happiest you could possibly be. You would wake up tomorrow living your dream life. Now the point of this is to remove the obstacles of fear, worry, and doubt. If you had the means, if you knew you didn't have to worry about money, imagine all the possibilities that would be open to you! If you had two hundred million dollars tomorrow and would never have to work a job just because you had to in order to make money, what job would you do because you love it? What job would you do because you want to, because you're passionate about it and it fills a deeper need in your heart than money? In other words: What would you do if you weren't afraid? What would you do if you had a magic wand and knew for certain that whatever it is you decided to do, you could not fail? Step out of the fear and the doubt for a moment with this thought exercise and dream of the possibilities.

Remember that this is an exercise. I didn't write the above paragraph to be inspiring and make you feel thoughtful- it is practical advice. Sit down for twenty minutes (or longer if you need, maybe much longer, but at least commit to twenty minutes just to see what happens!), open up a word document (or grab a note pad and pen if you prefer to write that way), and start writing. Describe the perfect life for you, the life of your dreams. Now there is a temptation here that I must note. It's tempting to think, "Hmmm... two hundred million dollars and whatever I want? My dream life would be to wake up every day and do nothing, get treated to a professional massage each day, eat gourmet dinners, buy all the stuff I want, etc." I'm guessing that if you're really honest with yourself, the pampered life might be "nice" but that you wouldn't find true meaning in it, neither true fulfillment, nor true happiness. You have to very honestly assess your heart's answer to the question, "At the end of such a life, would I look back and feel like I wasted it all, and have the same regrets as I would have had without all the money and power?"


Photo by: Gecko

I can't answer for you. Your answer is your answer. But since you've read this far, I am assuming that you really want to find the purpose of your life. Knowing that about you, I have at least some certainty that you are not the kind of person who would be satisfied by a life of endless luxury without much else. It's almost antithetical to the concept of purpose, because purpose implies action, goal-oriented action, intended to make a change of some kind in yourself or the world. If you're looking for your purpose, that means you want to make a difference somehow. Yielding to the temptation described above is represented in the metaphor of the heart used earlier as "all the treasures of wickedness." Yes, you will find those there too, but they are not what you are really after. They will distract you from your journey and keep you from finding the true treasures of your heart just as easily as the lions or other creatures which represent doubt and fear in the metaphor. Having made that qualification and having confronted that issue, proceed through the exercise and really write down what your dream life would be like.

Be specific! Visualize! Write what you would be doing with your time, what kind of relationships you would have, where you would live- this is your heart and your thought exercise. The (perceived!) limitations of the world don't exist here and you know it, so you are free to really seek your heart's desires. Imagine yourself waking up in the morning on the first day of your dream life. What time is it? How much sleep did you get? What kind of bed are you in? What kind of room? House? City? Does it matter? Is someone next to you in bed? What would your relationship be like? What are you like? How do others perceive you? What do they say when they talk about you? Keep thinking about all these things. Be still and listen to your heart- give it a chance to speak and then contemplate what it tells you. Are you hearing more doubts and fears? More meaningless, self-indulgent fantasies? Discard them and keep moving. When you feel at home thinking without limits and when you have learned to restrain the false, disordered passions that inevitably arise in such thinking, by opening up and being as honest and critical as you can, by listening hard to what the deepest, holiest part of your heart tells you, you can move on to the big question of what it is that will truly make you happy, what it is that you were made for, your purpose. Write this down. Describe it in detail!


Photo by: Gecko

This may take some time. You might find yourself needing a few days or weeks of serious reflection to learn the answers you seek. This is called an exercise because it's not a quick fix. If you are overweight and want to lose 30 pounds, there aren't really any healthy, sane solutions that happen instantly. It takes work. It takes exercise. Exercise involves time and effort and sometimes it's not fun, but it will help you reach your goal. It will improve you as a person physically and otherwise. Once you do discover your life's purpose... go for it! I already have another article in the works that will give specific instructions on how to take effective action to make your goals come true once you know what they are. As soon as it's ready I will post it to this blog. You can subscribe via feedreader or e-mail here so that you don't miss it.

One last note: I want to clarify what I have meant this whole time when speaking of "your life's purpose." If it's not already clear, let me say that in the context of this article, when I write "your life's purpose" I mean your earthly vocation. Those of you who do believe in the Divine will likely agree with me when I say that I believe all of us have an ultimate purpose that is Divine in nature, and that purpose is to acquire the Holy Spirit and to reflect by our actions and our love for ourselves, each other, and God, the Uncreated Light of Divinity. We are like caterpillars. The caterpillar's purpose is to grow into a butterfly. What will ultimately bring meaning to your life is to shed away all your flaws, all your frailties, all your addictions, all your bad habits, all your doubts, all your fear, all your hate and to emerge as the divine and beautiful creature you are, full of Love, bearing God's Image, and reflecting it as a Light to the entire universe. Along the way it is perfectly good and right that you should take up an earthly vocation. You were made for it, that's why you crave it so much. That's why you have read this long article about how to find your life's purpose. To that end, I hope what I have written has been helpful!


Photo by: Gecko