Many of us search for the purpose and meaning of our lives, especially when we face challenges like the ones we are dealing with right now. My teenage son’s new class is called Career Research, which requires the sophomores to find their passion and decide their future career. My son struggles because he doesn’t know what he wants to do when he grows up. He is frustrated that he doesn’t have a crystal-clear life purpose. He has this notion that “if I only know my purpose, everything else in my life will fit together.”
But what do we do if we don’t have a grand life purpose? After reading numerous books and self-searching, I know that your life purpose doesn’t come to you all at once; rather, it’s a process of discovery and unfolding, moment by moment, through living your true self. Right now, your purpose is simply whatever you are doing that is your most authentic expression of yourself.
I heard this amazing story from Jack Canfield, who is the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. I studied one of his online classes recently. In the course, Jack told the story of Kenneth Behring. The two met in Chicago when they were receiving their respective awards at a national convention. Ken told a powerful personal story about the four stages of his life:
- The first stage he called Stuff. Since he wasn’t happy, he figured he needed the right stuff. He got a car, a big house, a boat, an airplane, and numerous other material possessions. But they did not bring him happiness.
- The second stage of his life he called Better Stuff. He sought a sleeker car, a larger house, a newer plane… And yet, he still wasn’t happy.
- In the third stage, Ken figured that he needed Different Stuff, and that’s when he bought the Seattle Seahawks football team. He still wasn’t happy.
- The fourth stage, Ken called Purpose. One day, Ken’s friend called him and asked if he would like to travel to Eastern Europe. They were taking a plane full of wheelchairs, to give them to children who had lost their legs during the Bosnia-Croatia war.
Ken went and helped to give the wheelchairs away. He picked up an 11-year-old thin boy with no legs and placed him into a wheelchair, and then turned away to get another wheelchair. But the boy wouldn’t let go of his leg. Ken turned back around and saw the boy was crying with tears streaming down his face. Ken quickly called an interpreter as he couldn’t understand what he was saying. To the interpreter, the boy said, “Please don’t leave yet, let me look into your face, so I can memorize it, because when we meet again in heaven, I want to be able to thank you one more time.”
It was the first time in his life that Ken felt pure joy. He learned how the gift of a simple wheelchair not only transformed the life of its recipient, but also his life. He finally realized that his purpose was to serve other people. With that revelation in mind, he returned home and created The Wheelchair Foundation. He then started another initiative to get clean water into the world. And finally, he was extremely happy. Finally, Ken discovered joy, and the joy came from being of service.
Although Ken passed away in June 2019, his family is carrying on his mission. As of September 2020, the Wheelchair Foundation has had 1,123,400 wheelchairs delivered or committed around the world.
It is unfortunate that we live in a society where we measure success by what we get. The novelty of material acquisitions wears off in a flurry, and then we’re promptly onto our next goals. Take Ken, for example – he wasn’t happy when he was a rich man, but he was when he found his purpose and discovered that he could change people’s lives.
If you don’t have your life purpose right now, don’t worry. Continue to cultivate your self-awareness, increase your self-accountability, and gradually reveal the most authentic expression of yourself in your daily life.
I encourage you to keep focusing on what you are passionate about, and keep taking actions in the direction of goals that are important to you, and find joy, spontaneity, and abundance right here, right now. You will meet with your so-called grand purpose unexpectedly in common hours. Because a life purpose is really an accumulation of many small moments starting in the present.
So what can you do right now to move yourself closer to your purpose?
