Everyone always talks about purpose. Searching, finding, discovering, pursuing, doing everything they can to track down this elusive beast. As if, in finding it, everything else will drift gently into place. I think that our purpose is ever changing. When I was younger my sole purpose was not taking a nose dive off the patio, or to play outside until the street lights came on. But with every passing year, there seems to be more and more stress placed on zoning in on one’s purpose and maximizing all that potential we hear about, and all that character we have built over years of mowing the lawn and shoveling the drive.

There have been several times that I thought I had come face to face with my purpose, but it never quite worked out for whatever reason. Be it in my personal, or professional life, the supposed purpose always led to a drastic change. It started to become clear to me that I wasn’t finding my purpose, but the purpose of the given situation. I wasn’t supposed to have a certain job, I was meant to learn a set of skills. I wasn’t supposed to be in that relationship, the relationship was meant to teach me certain things about myself. I have learned many valuable lessons, one of the most important being the fact that you don’t have to try and find your purpose. If you spend your days on a quest to better yourself, and to only measure yourself up to the person you were yesterday, you are doing your part. I have grown from every experience I’ve had. Not looking at anything as a negative, only an opportunity to grow. Taking every positive as a stepping stone to the next big thing. Each situation that presents itself builds on the last. Always moving forward, never slowing down.

I no longer search for my purpose, I search for a better understanding of me. I’m sure it’s waiting three corners down, on the left. My purpose is lurking in the shadows, waiting to change my life forever. In the moment I least expect it, my purpose will find me.