The thing with fulfilling your purpose

I recently thought about the topic of life purpose.

I deeply believe everyone has at least one, if not multiples. I moved far away from thinking I have to “find” my passion and “live” my purpose, that magically somewhere on this earth waits a gift, a person, a situation or unexpected event to reveal to me “this is your gift to humanity”. Or similar.

Living life and paying attention to it, I noticed that “purpose” is not really a destination to get to, but a thing that happens while you do things that feel good. Again, not in the superficial way of just getting a hit from something that is pleasurable, but those things that naturally kind of pull you in, and that you experience a flow with while you are doing it.

(I deliberately call purpose a “thing” since I don’t have an exact label for it.)

I think of my purpose as the behind the scenes WHY I am doing things, HOW I do the work I am doing, and HOW it makes me feel in the big picture.

To give you my personal example, I have discovered that I love creating things, learning and then dissecting it, making complex stuff accessible for others. I also love thinking, and feeling things out, and combining the thinking with the feeling, just for the sake of it. I am immensely turned on by aesthetic structures, smart workflows and well functioning big systems.

(Just like the new compost shed on the permaculture farm I’ve recently been volunteering on.)

And lastly, I am most motivated and in flow when I get to follow multiple ideas at the same time and start random projects out of nowhere. I am thriving when I am allowed to change my mind as often as I want, go down rabbit holes, and drop stuff that I lose interest in.

Overall, I consider “purpose” a deeply personal and internal concept about ourselves, and not an external expectation that we have to fulfill. All of the above mentioned are aspects in my life, and in my personality, that, if allowed to be lived, are deeply satisfying and fulfilling to ME. Which makes me continue doing them and in turn, further down the line, maybe benefit another person with information, guidance, or just good energy.

I was quite surprised by my spontaneous insight. Am I saying that my purpose is not any form of obligation that I have, not a service I need to provide, or in fact nothing that has to do with me fitting into any expectation? Does it mean it doesn’t even include what I am good at, or what I am supposed to be doing with my life?

What if our purpose is to live our lives and simply be ourselves? (as if this was so simple…)

What if that alone holds all the little seeds that will later bloom into full-blown talents? What if the best thing everyone of us can do for humanity as a whole is to keep studying ourselves and uncover these little tweaks in our personality, the things that genuinely light us up, and just keep following that feeling?

Is your authentic self your best version of self?

Thoughts appreciated in the comments!