Usually, the search for purpose and meaning in life comes at a time when you realize that what you are doing seems pointless and with no end in sight.
Life has become empty, it has lost its color, and almost everything you participate in seems superficial. You could also be running a race for wealth, fame and glory, but with no end in sight. It feels like you are the rat in the proverbial rat race. The search for a purpose is a good thing. It actually means the awakening of your awareness that there is more to life than what you are experiencing. At first, you’ll probably feel terrible and really lousy, but take heart because pretty much everyone who started looking for their purpose started the same way you did.
The inner search to discover yourself
Finding your purpose is a journey not only of the external, but also of your inner world. If you try to search society for your sense of purpose, with the amount of mixed messages today, any information you find is more likely to confuse you further. You have to go within to find out what your likes and dislikes are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, how you relate to people, what causes emotional resonance and dissonance within you. As you start to find out more about yourself, you start to find out more about the world, and you start to find out more about life.
As you travel inward, your awareness of your external world also begins to expand. You begin to discover how your talents, strengths, and abilities can be of value in your society. Things that didn’t make sense before begin to make sense now, and as you begin to understand your abilities and talents, you begin to find congruence both within and without.
The external search for purpose
As you begin to understand and discover more about yourself, the outward journey of life begins to accelerate. With the inner sense of knowing who you are and what you are capable of, you gain confidence, calm and poise to interact with the outside world. Acting and moving from your center (your inner being), making changes and managing the affairs of life becomes easier. This is where the oft-quoted phrase about “have the courage to change the things you can, accept the things you can’t, and have the wisdom to know the difference” comes in. This wisdom is only truly possible when you know what you can and cannot do.
Summary
The search for your life purpose can be short and simple, or it can be longer and not so easy. Ultimately it depends on where you are currently in life. If you know yourself fairly well, then you’ve already been on the inner journey for some distance. If you’re just starting out on the path of self-discovery, then it might take a bit longer. When you finally really know yourself, that is when you are most likely to be able to establish a meaningful life purpose.
