Purpose

When I was twenty-two I was quite sure about what I wanted in life.

I was about to start a job at McKinsey. I'd pull on a blue suit and sling my company-issued laptop bag over my shoulder. At the office I'd help “solve problems for clients” and in the evenings I'd have nice dinners and fall asleep in a five star hotel room. At the weekends, I'd spend my McKinsey dollars on nice things, like brunches and fancy meals and weekend getaways. I was excited about it all. And it all happened exactly like I thought it would.

But after a few years of this lifestyle, my sureness faded. I wasn’t feeling the happy, contented life that I thought I’d have. I wondered if there was another path out there for me. One where I felt more contentment, where I had a sense of purpose I guess. I didn’t even know what purpose meant, I just felt pretty sure that it was the goal…

My wondering led to wandering.

Wandering into a startup. Wandering to Australia. Wandering across Australia. Wandering into new friendships. Wandering out of old ones. Wandering through books that taught me new ways of looking at the world. Wandering through challenges that taught me new ways of looking at myself. Wandering up hills of triumphs, from where I had moments of clarity on the horizon of my own life. Wandering into new ideas and trying them. Wandering along a pebbled beach of beliefs, sometimes picking them up and putting them in my pockets, sometimes taking out old ones and throwing them away.

Throughout this wandering, I started to know some things.

Now, I don't know much and the more I learn the less I feel I know. But right now, this is what I know;

I want to live a life of connection. I want people in my life that I care about and who care about me. I want a partner and a family. I want close friends and family who I can share anything with. I want casual friends I can laugh with. I want colleagues I can share ideas and debate with. I want strangers I can connect with for a moment, and for that moment to be enough. I want to live in a warm web of connection with others.

I want to feel. I want a life of emotion. The highs and the lows. I want to feel love. I don't want to be numb. I want experiences that allow me to feel - to experience art and music and creativity.

I want to create. I want to feel the joy that comes form making something. I want to lose myself in flow, in thoughtlessness. I want to connect with whatever magic may exist in the universe and to channel that magic into our world through one medium or another. I want to make music. To write. To be lost in that energy of creation.

I want to play. When I was a boy, all I wanted to do was play. With a ball under one arm and my imagination under another, I’d skip out into my garden. I would play for hours, lost in pointless joy. I want to feel that joy of play as an adult.

I want to live in the physical world. I want to move in the real world, to feel the strength of my body, to sweat. To make things with my hands. Hanging out online doesn't do it for me. It's flat and one dimensional and my chimp brain doesn't like it there. I want to be in the natural world. To see animals and be in awe at the independence of their lives. I want to see big waves on a winter’s day and feel my skin tingle when I dive into the cold of the ocean. I want to see mountains in spring and big leafy parks in autumn. I want to sit on the beach in summer and hop-skotch across the sand when it's too hot. I want to sit around a fire and look up at the stars.

I want to help others. I feel good when I help others and I don’t do it enough.

I've asked myself a lot about how to find meaning in my life; "what is my purpose?". Perhaps for the first time I have some clarity on this question; my purpose is to live in accordance with these six things.

If I've learned anything, it is that who we are and what we desire, changes. So I assert this purpose with the confidence that it’s true to me know, but with the humility of knowing it may all change. With the humility of someone who knows they are still wandering.