Usually the search for purpose and meaning in life comes at a point in time when you realize that what you’re doing seems pointless with no end in sight.
Life has become empty, lost its color, and almost everything that you partake in seems superficial. You could also be running a race for riches, fame and glory but with no end in sight. It feels like you’re the rat in the proverbial rat race.
Searching for your Life Purpose is a Good Thing
When you start your search for your life purpose, it’s a good thing. It means that your consciousness is waking up, and you’re moving to a higher level of thought and awareness.
While it’s true that you might feel terrible at the beginning, realize that you’re not the only one who started out this way. Practically everyone who started their search for purpose in life started out the same way you did. And if others have made it, so will you if you persevere and push on.
The Inward Search to Discover Your Self
The search for purpose is a journey of two worlds. It encompasses your journey inwards to understand and know yourself, and it also includes the journey outwards to learn more about the world you live in.
The core part in the search for purpose in life comes from inside you, not the outside. If you were to look to the world for purpose, it’s very likely that you’ll end up even more confused and disturbed by what you find.
In the journey of self discovery, you go within to find out what your likes and dislikes are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, how you relate to people, what causes emotional resonance and dissonance within you.
What you’re really doing is to uncover what talents and abilities that exist within you. At the same time, you start to find out what you really like and what your passions are. As you discover more about yourself, you start to realize how everything in your life so far has led you up to this point.
Everything in your life starts to make sense
Things that didn’t make sense before start to make sense to you now. All the little bits and pieces of your life start to click into one big picture in your mind, and the tapestry of your life starts to unfold before you.
The Outward Search for Purpose
As you begin to understand and discover more about yourself, the outward journey of life starts to accelerate. With the inner sense of knowing who you are and what you’re capable of, you gain confidence, calm and poise to interact with the external world.
Acting and moving from your center (your inner self), making changes and handling the issues of life become easier. This is where the often quoted phrase about
“having the courage to change the things you can, accepting the things you can’t, and having the wisdom to know the difference”
comes in. This wisdom is only truly possible when you know what you can and cannot do.
Summary
The search for your purpose of life may be short and simple, or it may be longer and not so easy. It ultimately depends on where you currently are in life. If you know yourself pretty well, then you would already have traveled the inner journey for some distance already. If you’re just starting on the path of self discovery, then it might take a little longer.
When you finally truly know yourself, that’s when you will be able to establish a life purpose that is meaningful to you.
