What is your purpose?

What is your purpose?

So? What do you think you'll do? How are you going to spend your life?

I'm not sure. But I do know i'm going to live every single second of it- quote from the movie "Soul(2020)"

Are we born with a purpose or can we create it? No one can really give a certain answer, no matter how much we’d like to know. Life would be so easy and predictable if we all had a magical moment where everything stopped and we could just see what we're supposed to do for the rest of our lives. Sure, it'd be amazing to know. You wouldn't have to struggle with pressure, expectations, fear that you chose the wrong path because you'd be certain you can't change your purpose. You would accept it, work for it, maybe make a few mistakes along the way, but you wouldn't second guess your choices.

But we all know that's not how life works( unless you're a magician, in which case, you would only have to learn a few spells when you don't like something about your life. Wouldn't that be wonderful?).

We can't know and I think that's one of the many beauties of life. If we did, wouldn't it be boring? If there was no magic or mystery, where would be the fun of living?

The cost of living a vibrant and full life is to get lost sometimes, even if it's scary.

-theexploreader

Our path isn’t always a calm sea on a sunny day: sometimes it feels like being stuck in the middle of an ocean during a storm. It feels like our path is chaotic because we don't know what to do, but in reality the sun will always come out, even if it might take longer. If we were to transform these hypothetical waves in a graph, it would probably be something like this (don't mind my math skills):

Purpose vs. Spark — Lessons from “Soul”

In the movie "Soul", the one i gave the quote from in the beginning, this theme is explored beautifully. Even if this movie is made for children, I think young adults are the ones who should watch it.

We follow the life of Joe Gardner, a middle-aged man whose dream is to become a jazz musician and who thinks this is his life’s purpose. He doesn’t pay attention to the little things and doesn’t allow himself to fully feel love; he is so determined to achieve his purpose that it makes him blind and careless to anything else happening. I could talk about this movie all day, but I’ll try to connect this example to the real world (there might be spoilers ahead).

Joe literally forgets to live because the only thing he cares about is achieving his goal. It’s like seeing the light at the end of a tunnel whose exit feels impossibly far, leaving everything else in darkness. There’s nothing wrong with ambition, but the problem is when it consumes us so completely that we forget everything else that makes life worth living. Joe also believed that one’s purpose is the same as their spark — which brings us back to our initial question:

Are we born with a purpose, or do we create it?

In the movie, every soul goes through preparation before receiving an “Earth pass” and being ready to start life. Their personalities are assigned, but they have to try different activities — football, piano, singing — to discover what they love doing.

Another main character, 22, couldn’t find her purpose because she didn’t enjoy anything she tried. Long story short, both Joe and 22 arrive on Earth in different bodies (Joe in a cat, 22 in Joe). She gets to experience life fully, enjoying every little thing: a leaf falling on the ground, a lollipop, someone singing on the subway and feeling this childlike excitement for every small moment. When they return to the “preparation” zone, 22 finally gets her Earth pass, while Joe is left confused, still believing his purpose is jazz.

Later, he realizes the spark isn’t the same as purpose. The spark is what lights us up, the moments and activities that make us feel alive, but purpose is broader — it’s the reason we keep living, loving, and creating meaning beyond any single goal. Joe understood this and realized jazz isn't the only important thing in his world.

Creating our purpose

I believe our purpose is something we create, not something assigned at birth. We’re born with tendencies and talents, things we’re drawn to, but it’s up to us to decide what we do with them. Our spark might be a talent, a hobby, or something we love, but our purpose can be much deeper: to love, to connect, to make the world softer, to live fully. Purpose isn’t always grand, sometimes it’s quiet, simple, and just as meaningful.

Joe's determination and ambitions are to be admired, because he didn't let anyone stay in the way of his dreams. Not everyone has the same clarity and I think many of us hide under false pretexts we create thinking it would be easier to be accepted, thus the need for permission. We pretend we know what we're supposed to do, we lie to ourselves, we're influenced by people who try to convince us what's good for us from their perspective until we get to a point where the line between what we truly want and what we'd do to make others happy gets blurry.

That's when people start floating through life rather than being connected to what makes them feel alive. It's like starting to build something without reading the instructions, when in this case, the instructions are you. If you don’t know yourself, how can you build a life that truly fits?

Deep down, most of us know what's good for us, what brings us that spark: whether it's singing, dancing, cooking, etc. If we could let our heart beat the way it wants, it would be easier to swim through life. So why don't we follow that spark? Why don't we dedicate our life following it, step by step, if we know it's good for us? Unfortunately no one can really give a clear answer to that, as every person is different. Most of the time, it's the fear of being misunderstood, that you won't fit in, that you'll be lonely, fear of failure: the list goes on.

Sometimes all you have to do to make a difference is to love, to understand and to just live every second.

-theexploreader

My purpose

Personally, I think my purpose is to live fully, to see beauty in ordinary days, to write and create things that make others feel something real. Maybe my path isn’t about doing something “great” by the world’s standards, but about being present — noticing the small moments, the quiet lessons, the sparks that remind me I’m alive.

I want to turn all those pieces into something meaningful, something that might one day help someone else find their own spark too. I hope you'll find here something that will remind you to never forget what your spark is and to have the courage to listen to your voice and take chances at ideas that seem crazy to most but destiny to you.

Final thought

We may never find our purpose written somewhere, but maybe we’re meant to create it every single day, through how we live, love, and understand each other.

A spark is what makes us feel alive, a purpose is what we live for.

-theexploreader

With love,

theexploreader