Do you remember those interest inventories from high school? If not, I apologize. My mid-thirties might be showing. This was in the dark age before the time of online quizzes and social media questionnaires. These inventories would prompt you to fill in bubbles to answer questions about which activities you preferred. I would always skew my answers a bit toward things that sounded medical because I was pretty sure I’d look fine in a doctor’s coat. So, following my slight cheating, all those questions would lead to a super technical graph showing the jobs you should pursue.

I hope you never feel a lack of purpose or direction. Because in 27 years, I’ve been let down by a lot of people and situations but nothing has ever felt as bad as feeling like I had no purpose. Pretty grim way to start my first post in a few years, right? But it’s true. Leading up to 2020 and the pandemic that ruined so many lives, I always had a purpose. And I didn’t even know it. What I didn’t know was that having a job and keeping busy gave me purpose.

I wish I could write a beautiful, compelling piece about the achievement of purpose. I wish I could tell you that if you just worked hard enough, believed strongly enough, and persevered long enough, your purpose would fall into place. I wish I could tell you of my own personal success story to inspire you to continue to believe for your own. But I can’t. I have read the books, attended the conferences, and taken the assessments. I have done the hard work. I have prayed and believed.

Wrestling with purpose is nothing new for many of us. We wonder about our destiny and what’s intended for our future. Often, we search for small (but mighty) signs pointing us in the direction we are meant to go; and when we don’t find them, we jump to feelings of despair and hopelessness. It can be so easy to latch onto those thoughts and emotions that we quite literally have to sever ties with our feelings, just for a moment, to recoup and come back down to earth.