How to Find Purpose in Your Life

Have you been wondering what your purpose is? Look to your soul.

I’ve always envied friends of mine who knew at an early age exactly what they wanted to be.

In fifth grade, I had one friend who knew he would be a Major League Baseball pitcher. In sixth grade, I had a friend who knew he would be a trombonist in a top-tier orchestra. Both became who they were obviously meant to be: Jack Morris, Detroit Tigers; Norman Bolter, Boston Symphony Orchestra.

I just never had any idea what I was supposed to be.

Here and there, to and fro

Although I played music from an early age, I wasn’t interested in the typical musician’s path: becoming a flute teacher or a member of an orchestra. I became a nightclub performer instead. (Such a rebel.)

I spent 20 years in the newspaper industry. I fell into editing by pure chance—I had no journalism degree; in fact, no degree at all. I just walked into the small-town newspaper office one day and said, “You really need a proofreader, and I am available.”

I was hoping for a part-time job reading the paper before it went to print and catching lots of typos. Instead, I became Lifestyles Editor that very day because the person who had been doing the job walked out just before I walked in. That happenstance led to bigger and better newspapers, where I eventually became managing editor over a small staff.

Though I’ve had “default purposes” in my life (jobs that paid the bills and decisions that created general safety and security), I’ve always felt like my True Purpose was utterly elusive.

I’ve been looking into taking a course to discover my True (Soul’s) Purpose (see purposeguides.org). And just from reading about the course, I finally understand that your job can be simply a vehicle for fulfilling your purpose, not the purpose itself. That’s actually taken some weight off my shoulders!

What is the soul’s purpose? What is the soul?

Of course, there are a lot of definitions and ideas about what a soul is. For the purposes of this discussion, we can say that it’s a sense … a sensitivity … a perception. That…