The Pathways of Purpose

Are you living with purpose? Only you can know.

I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose recently, from several different angles, so as I start writing this blog post I feel like a novelist who is embarking on a complicated, multi-stranded plot, with the hope (and not a little anxiety) that I can manage to pull all the plot-lines together at the end. Here goes…

My Purpose

For myself, I feel that purpose has had a massive impact on my trajectory. During my late teens and 20s I had little purpose other than to earn money, buying into the myth that money can make you happy, only to find that any happiness found this way is usually shallow. (Lack of money can make you unhappy, but that is a different thing.)

Abandoning my quest for material wealth, I then set out in search of something that felt more meaningful, and somewhere in the Peruvian Andes, witnessing the retreating glaciers, I found it — my environmental mission. This led to me fully embrace the purpose-led life, dedicating 7 years and 3 ocean crossings to raising environmental awareness. Along the way, I discovered deep wells of courage and resourcefulness that could have remained forever undiscovered if I hadn’t been so incredibly motivated by my goal.

I’ve attempted to plot this journey below (the thing that looks like a psychedelic ammonite)…