Today’s post is more of a question right now than something I’ve properly ruminated on, but I think I’ll come back to write about this again, and again. Maybe I’ll never stop coming back to this.
I only wrote about Elizabeth Gilbert a couple of days back, but it turns out that she has many thoughts that get you, well… thinking. This time, it’s the idea of “purpose anxiety” (self explanatory).
The story that most of us were taught was some variation of: each of you was born with one unique offering, special spark that is only yours and only you can deliver on that. It is your job. It is your job to find out what that thing is that only you can do.
But Elizabeth goes on to wonder if it’s simpler than that, or perhaps less knowable. What if your purpose, for example, was to help that one elderly neighbour get home safely, or to let someone skip ahead of you.
We worry so much about purpose and legacy, but for all we know we might have fulfilled our purpose, or at least a purpose. Perhaps we can fulfill many. Perhaps there’s no single purpose for you.
I saw a guy standing on top of a ladder painting the awning of his storefront. I instantly saw that the ladder wasn’t steady. I had nowhere else to be. I was the perfect person for the job to cross the street and just hold the ladder. I probably held it for 45 minutes. He never saw me, but I felt better because I was like: I’m just going to make sure this guy doesn’t fall today.
Perhaps that was her purpose, Elizabeth wondered. Perhaps all this time she’d been waiting for this moment. Maybe, she thought, she’d become a writer so that she would end up in Los Angeles—here; now.
Having a single purpose can be a daunting idea. Even if it’s helpful, or makes you feel good, perhaps you have more than one. Maybe you have a big purpose and a million other smaller ones.
I think about purpose a lot, but hearing this story from Elizabeth (it was on her July 2025 interview with Tim Ferris) helped me to reframe it, and to look at my past actions in a whole new light.