You Can Stop Trying to Figure Out Your Life Purpose

I graduated from college 13 years ago.

Whoa, that is both an exhilarating and slightly devastating thing to say out loud (or in this case, to write down). In my head I often still see myself as a 22 year old college student.

I for sure want to believe I am still as cool as a 22 year old college student, but the reality is I am only a few years away from being old enough to have given birth to a college aged student.

This is the great news and the hard news about life: time flies.

By that I mean it’s really great news that time flies because all those questions you have about your life right now—about how things are going to go and what you’re supposed to do next—the questions that are driving you crazy will have answers soon. Sooner than you realize.

But this is also hard news because it means that if you don’t embrace the day and the hour or the moment in front of you, it passes you by.

Currently there is a recent college graduate living with us.

A few months ago we were talking about a children’s show called “Blue’s Clues”. I said, “The kids I nannied while I was in college used to watch that show.” To which she replied, “I used to watch that show.”

Whoa, that’s right. I, in fact, am no longer a college-age student.

When I graduated college I found myself standing on the doorstep of my future, believing it was time to step into my life’s purpose.

But my life’s purpose was a mystery to me.

I knew what I loved. What I was passionate about. The things God had branded on my heart that were unique to me. So I gathered up all those desires, passions, and ideas and used them to navigate me towards fulfilling my life’s purpose.

The thing about it is though, I’ve changed so much since then.

What I want out of life life and what I once believed to be my “life’s purpose” has morphed and changed a thousand times, and has become what is now my life. It’s nothing like I thought it would be. It’s better.

A lot has happened to me in these past 13 years.

I went on to earn two teaching credentials. I set up and run my own high school classroom full of teenagers, and hormones, and sass. I got married. I bought a house. I traveled to far off places where people speak different languages and eat exotic foods. I experienced loss and tragedy. I adopted three kids. I started a new career as a writer.

I’ve taken this one and only life I’ve been given and done my best to drink it up. Letting adventure, relationships and love hydrate my soul.

As soon as I thought I had a grip on my life’s purpose, life changed.

We think our life’s purpose is to get married, or be a parent, or work that dream job. But what happens when you hit 35 and you are still single, or your marriage ends in divorce or your spouse tragically passes away?

What happens when you are unable to have kids?

What happens when the economy tanks and you are laid off from you dream job?

It makes me begin to wonder if we are missing something when we think about our “purpose” in life.

The fact that pursuing ones life’s purpose is, in itself, an idea only the privileged have access to, to me makes it a mostly irrelevant question. Not that we’re wrong for wondering. We can’t help it. It’s just that we can’t predict or control where we are trying to go.

It might be healthier for us to just be open.

I can’t image a single mother in a third world country is waking up in pursuit of her life’s purpose. Or a man being driven from his home by war and terror is looking to God to show him what his “life’s purpose” is.

No, most likely they are waking up figuring out how to get food and water into their bellies and the bellies of their families.

Before pursuing our life’s purpose, we need to recognize that it is in fact a privileged idea.

If you’re in a season of life where you’re wondering what comes next, here’s the great news:

Your life’s purpose is to love God and love others. Period. Everything we put our hands to should fall under those two categories. As long as it does, you’ve already found your life’s purpose—so you can give up all that painful guessing and wondering and pressure-packed question-asking.

Finding our purpose in loving God and loving others frees us up to take a step towards whatever is next, or feel a whole lot less terrified when everything we have worked so hard for crumples before our eyes.

Let’s love other and love God and in so doing find ourselves exactly who we were meant to be all along.