Understanding My Purpose in Life

In my last post I talked about the importance of knowing who you really are. This is intrinsically linked with knowing why you are here. Your identity, your true nature, is fundamentally connected to your purpose in life.

Here’s an example to illustrate this: Let’s say you are a tiny acorn. Your physical incarnation is a seed inside a tough, leathery shell and enclosed in a cup-shaped base. Your identity is more than this, though. You are a seed that has the potential to develop into the mighty oak tree. Even as a tiny acorn, your identity holds the potential for all the qualities that an oak tree possesses: strength, steadiness, authority. 

If the acorn was to awaken and to realise its own identity, it would have a very clear idea about what it needed to do in life. It needs to find a way to grow into the mighty oak, so that it may radiate its strength and wisdom to all around it. To do this, it needs to follow certain stages in a certain order. It needs to find a helpful squirrel to take the nut somewhere where it can germinate. It needs to make sure that it doesn’t get eaten by said squirrel (one imagines there’s a certain amount of luck in this part of its journey). It needs the right environment to flourish: sunlight, water, nutrients. 

So even as a young seed, the blueprint of that oak tree lies inside it. It might not get the chance to grow into its full potential, but if it does it can become something magnificent.

What if you are like the acorn? What if inside you lies a roadmap to you achieving your potential? Wouldn’t you like to find that map and see where life could take you?

Whether this resonates with you will depend partly on your philosophy of life. “I don’t have a philosophy of life!” I hear you cry. You do, though, I’m sure. Even if it’s implicit, there will be somewhere in you a working hypothesis about why you are here. Here’s two different philosophies that many of us subconsciously subscribe to, as explained by the psychiatrist Frattaroli¹:

1. The Swimming Pool Theory: You are here to swim lengths: up and down, up and down. If something happens to disrupt those lengths, you just want to get rid of that disruption and get back to your lengths as soon as possible. Any suffering in your life is a distraction from those lengths. Get back to it!
2. The Quest Theory: Life is a journey, a bit like in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. You have a purpose and your primary desire is to complete that purpose. You need to put the One Ring into the fiery depths of Mordor². On you way you will meet people, learn things and get in trouble. You will fall over again and again. Yet each struggle teaches you something new and you move closer to your purpose. Suffering is a necessary step on the way to becoming your full potential.

Different therapeutic approaches subscribe more to one theory than another. Traditional Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) subscribes more to the swimming pool theory. If someone is depressed you don’t need to understand anything about their journey in life or their purpose or why they are unhappy. Just use these techniques and get them back to their old life as quickly as possible.

The shame of this approach is that it misses something so important. Depression is an opportunity. Can you give yourself the time to examine your life and think about why you are feeling sad? Are you living the kind of life that you want? What is going wrong in your journey that you have fallen down like this? The newer therapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and energy psychology can explicitly address these issues. 

Sometimes when things go very wrong for us that we can realise that we are on the wrong path. With some reflection and help we can find our way to where we need to go. We can discover our purpose.

I would argue that is only when we discover our purpose that we can become truly happy (or self-actualised, in the words of the great Carl Rogers). Knowing our purpose helps us every step of the way. We can weigh up each decision with reference to that purpose. Even when things get tough (and they will, suffering is part of the human condition) we can remember where we are going and take another step on the path.

If you want to think more about your purpose then consider finding an ACT therapist or an energy psychologist with an interest in these kinds of issues. You are welcome to book a session with me (online or in person) or consider joining one of my upcoming webinars on these issues. Set an intention to discover who you really are and why you are here and then begin that journey right now.

1. Frattaroli, E. (2001). Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain. Viking Press.
2. This is probably not your purpose. This one has already been taken.