Finding Your Purpose

By Perri Ardman and Joanna Shipley

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
Yogi Berra

Purpose gives meaning to our lives. Consider the people you know -- friends, family, acquaintances, and even people you've met only briefly. Who seems truly alive to you? Who inspires you? To whom do you go when your batteries need recharging? Are the people you admire, people whose lives are guided by purpose?

One of the most purposeful people we know is Barbara Sarah, a Constructive Living instructor who shines with energy, enthusiasm, humor, and compassion. Nearly seven years ago, Barbara learned she had breast cancer, which led her to make some dramatic changes in her professional and personal life. Before her diagnosis, Barbara was a school social worker commuting several days a week from her home in upstate New York to Long Island -- a grueling trip. After she was diagnosed with cancer, she knew she needed to find a job closer to home. But not just any job. "I knew that working in the cancer field was a calling. For me, the purpose was to be of service to people who were ill. It resonated. There was actually a job in a school nearby, but I didn't want to do that any more. I wanted to be a social worker in a hospital, and I didn't have even one day of experience. I really had to sell myself. I was interviewed eight times for my current position at the Breast Cancer Center at Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, NY. And I gave each person who interviewed me some material on living fully with illness, because I wanted them to know that my vision wasn't just a support group sitting around talking."

When the job offer finally came through, Barbara took it, but not without some concerns. The new job, even though it was what she wanted, was risky. It meant leaving a tenured position for something far less certain. She recalled a short article she read more than 20 years ago, "Here Be Dragons" by James Lipton. "It discussed the whole idea of crisis being both danger and opportunity, and that when you feel scared, it's a signal that there's an opportunity for growth."

One piece of advice Barbara has for those who are searching for their purpose is to know what your values are. "Somehow your purpose flows out of what you value. If what you're trying to accomplish is at odds with what you believe, it creates a lot of tension. What you do and what you believe have to be consonant. To be able to make a living and make a difference at the same time is a privilege."

People do not need to wait for a crisis in their lives before acquiring a sense of their purpose. Conservationist Warren King of Ripton, Vermont discovered his sense of purpose over forty years ago. As a philosophy major, he had no idea of what to do after he graduated from college. "Major in philosophy" is not a phrase you ever see in the help-wanted ads. But he always loved bird-watching, and thought, "Why not do for a living what I like to do as a hobby?" A friend told him that the Smithsonian Institution needed people to "make observations and carry things" for an ecological research program. As King puts it, "I was there at the right time." He took the job and for the next six years compiled data on seabirds in the central Pacific Ocean. "The field work was extremely tedious -- going all day, you were practically blinded by the light...but I loved it."

When the job ended, King enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Cornell's school of Natural Resources, but before he completed his dissertation, the Smithsonian invited him back, this time as the Executive Assistant to the President of the International Council for Bird Preservation. Now it was time for a crucial decision -- finish the degree or take the job. King picked the job because it was just the kind of thing he'd hoped the degree would make possible. He stayed at the Smithsonian for six years, edited a book on the status of threatened bird species throughout the globe, and got to know all the players in the world of international bird conservation. "I had a marvelous time," he said.

King later moved from Washington, DC to Vermont and joined the staff of the Keewadin Environmental Education Center in the Green Mountains. He began teaching young people about nature. He'd always shied away from teaching, but discovered that he liked it and was good at it.

Today, King is extensively involved with the statewide conservation movement. He is the president of the Vermont Audubon Council, board chair of the Nature Conservancy of Vermont, and he holds leadership positions in a half-dozen other organizations. He finds his work extremely satisfying, yet working purposefully doesn't mean that he loves every activity. Fundraising is an example. "It's something you have to do," he says, and so he does it even though he doesn't find asking people for money "a fun thing to do." A purposeful life also has its obstacles. For King, these include the sheer volume of activities and having to spend time and energy on petty issues not directly related to the work at hand.

What advice does he have to offer those of us still searching for our purpose? "Recognize your skills, talents, and interests. Don't try to plan out your life with no room for detours because it's not the way the world works...be mindful of the opportunities that come along." He suggests looking for work that coincides with your interests, passions, or hobbies -- and be willing to turn 180 degrees when new opportunities arise.

Carole Dipzinski made that turn at age 31 when she decided to return to school to become a nurse. "It was the gift of a lifetime," she said. Now she owns her own business called Senior Pathways, a service that helps seniors with in-home care. "This is what I want," says Carole. "You have to take a risk to get what you want and you can't be afraid to take the first step."

Richard Leider is the author of The Power of Purpose (Berrett-Koehler, 1997). His book contains useful exercises for uncovering your interests, gifts and values and there is a section on work and purpose which can be helpful for those looking to make a change. He states, "People with a sense of purpose learn to move the focus of their attention and concern away from themselves to others." It's not just about what I want to do, but what needs doing. Leider suggests asking yourself "What needs doing in your organization? What needs doing in the world? Then put your talents to work on some area of need that you believe in. Choosing your work is your chance to do something more meaningful than getting up in the morning, putting in your time, doing what it takes to pay the bills."

During the past 25 years, Leider has interviewed more than 1,000 senior citizens, asking them to look back over their lives and talk about what they have learned. A common thread runs through their comments. "First, they say that if they could live their lives over again, they would be more reflective. They got so caught up in the doing, they say, that they often lost sight of the meaning. Looking back, they wish they had stopped at regular intervals to look at the big picture." Reflection seems to help us discover, or even reconnect with, our purpose. "Second, if they could live their lives over again, they would take more risks. Almost all of them said they felt most alive when they took risks."

"And third, if they could live their lives over again, they would understand what really gave them fulfillment. I call that the power of purpose: doing something that contributes to life, adding value to life beyond yourself." Purpose is always outside yourself, beyond your ego or your financial self-interest.

Even if you haven't discovered some larger life purpose, you may find that smaller day-to-day or moment-to-moment purposes create a natural path to a purposeful life. As physician Ari Kiev said, "A successful life does not result from chance, fate, or good fortune, but from a succession of successful days lived in pursuit of a worthy purpose."

Perri Ardman is a Constructive Living instructor and writer in Port Ewen, NY. Joanna Shipley is a member of the ToDo Institute and a board member of the Otter Creek Audubon Society. She works in the Biology department at Middlebury College.

SOME PURPOSEFUL QUOTES

"The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people's lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them."
--Rabbi Harold Kushner

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being of a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
--George Bernard Shaw

"The secret of success is constancy to purpose."
--Benjamin Disraeli

"I think that there is a line that begins before our life here, intersects it, and continues after we exist. Chance certainly plays a part in our lives, but it is chance with purpose."
--Seji Ozawa

"For years I questioned what the meaning of my life was. . . why was I here? I could think of a number of reasons to live, and could imagine more than one purpose to devote my life to, but ultimately I never felt that I was clear about the meaning of my life. Then one day it occurred to me that maybe I'd had it backwards all along, that instead of focusing my energy on finding some purpose and meaning in my life, I needed to make my daily life more meaningful. So ultimately I needed to forget about the questions and live the answers I had. So I decided to focus on shaping my everyday life in ways that reflected my personal values -- time with my family and friends, time in my garden, time in service to others, and time for myself."
--Tammy Fowles

"A helpful question is, "should I die tomorrow, what would I regret not having started, out of fear or laziness or procrastination?" Another question is "what can I return to the world with my particular blend of talents, strengths, weaknesses, experience?"
--Trudy Boyle