Mary spent decades searching for a singular life purpose, haunted by childhood interests that went unsupported and books telling her that multiple passions were a flaw. Then she realized her purpose was already fulfilled the moment she was born, and everything after that is optional. That shift freed her from the weight of expectation.
Hello, bonjour! It's Mary, not in Paris, in Barcelona, and I was out and about today seeing the city for the first time. And I was remembering a part of my life that really spans several decades, if I'm honest, where all I wanted to do was find my life purpose. Does this sound familiar to you? I really wanted to find my life purpose. I wanted to know why I was here, what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I bought book after book after book. I invested in all kinds of different programs. And I was always left with the same feeling, the same sense of, I have no idea. I have honestly no idea what my life purpose is. I started to think back to my childhood through all of the reading and things that I was doing, you know, what did I like to do back then? Well, I liked to make up stories, I liked reading, I liked writing and all of those things, but I couldn't really find a purpose in there. And I think the other piece of it that was so frustrating to me was that there were so many people— you probably know people like this, or maybe you are one of these people— who seem to know what they're meant to do from a very young age. I've known many people like this personally. I've certainly seen public figures like this who seem to have it all figured out from the time they're, you know, 2 years old. They have a talent or a skill in a certain area, and they continue to develop that skill and talent and that becomes their thing. And I was never like that. I never had something like that that I was really talented in, talented in, or just, you know, really loved or had a passion for. And, you know, I love my parents very, very much, but they were not all that encouraging of me to pursue creative things. They didn't really understand certain aspects of myself, like I really enjoyed music And I think that I could have gone into music composing. But they didn't really understand that. So they didn't know how to support me. Same with writing. They didn't think that that was a very viable career choice. So they didn't really support me in that either. And so a lot of the things that I think I could have excelled at, I wasn't really given any, you know, belief or support from the people who are most important to me. And so over time, it seemed like, you know, my life purpose, if you will, just got very, very fuzzy. And I kind of lost that. And I felt sad. I wanted to know what it was. I wanted to know what I'd lost. I wanted to know if there was something that I was supposed to be doing with my life that I wasn't doing. And that's why I went on this kind of relentless pursuit of my life purpose. I remember reading a book that was— I forget the exact title, it might have been called The Renaissance Soul or something like that. And it was, um, it was sort of encouraging because, you know, I'm someone who likes to do a lot of different things, and I had always felt like there was something wrong with me because of that. I had always seen people who had passion and purpose as having a singular passion and purpose. And so being someone with multiple interests like music and writing and creating other things with my hands, like knitting and sewing and all that, you know, that, that somehow seemed not as good, even though of course many people have been rewarded for things like that, like Martha Stewart comes to mind. But somehow that seemed less than, that didn't seem as important as having a life purpose. And so I spent all this time, I mean, literally decades of my life feeling less than because I couldn't find my life purpose. And I was sad about that. I felt like I was grieving something almost. And then a few years ago, I had a completely different idea about life purpose. I mean, completely different. I have no idea where this idea came from. I don't know if I heard it from someone else, probably. I, I don't know. What I know is that it shifted the entire thing for me and relieved me of all of that grief and pressure and all of that that I'd been feeling for decades. And it was simply this. The moment that you and I came into being, our life purpose was fulfilled. Yours and my life purpose was fulfilled the moment we came into being. How about that for simplicity? That everything else that comes after that moment that we came into being is extra in, in that there isn't something that we are supposed to be doing or that we are meant to be doing. It's more like our presence in this life, this thing called life, is what our purpose has always been, and there's nothing more that we have to do to fulfill it. And when I had this idea I was so— oh my gosh, the feeling of expansion and freedom that came along with it is hard to describe. It was as if the weight of the world honestly was lifted from my shoulders. I'm getting kind of emotional as it's raining here in Barcelona and I'm sitting in this little deck listening to it. It was really momentous. And so I'm sharing this with you because if you are someone who feels like you haven't fulfilled your life's purpose, or that something you have lived in your life isn't enough, if that makes sense, like you haven't done enough, you haven't achieved enough, whatever, I want you to just set all that off to the side because it's not true. You fulfilled your life purpose the moment that you came into being. You did, I did, we all did. There isn't anything more that we have to do or achieve. Everything else is a gift, it's an extra, it's something that we are freely choosing and living. And that's just a beautiful recognition of what we're actually here for.
