I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about ‘Purpose’ over the past months.
I’ve read articles, worked my way through workbooks like The Soul Purpose Method, attended virtual summits and generally wrestled with existential questions like “What am I here to do?” “Am I using my skills and expertise in the most impactful way?” And “What work would I find most fulfilling?”
I found myself firmly bought into the idea that there is a singular goal or vocation that my particular blend of talents, experiences and ideas makes me somehow destined to perform.
A golden path that if I can find and follow will not only bring me the greatest sense of satisfaction, fulfilment and joy, but will also serve a greater good.
A special golden key that if I can find it will unlock a daily supply of energy, passion and joy that otherwise sits untapped.
It’s an alluring picture and one that I think many of us have been conditioned to buy into. It’s even sparked its own branch of the self help and life coaching industry.
Unlike our parents and their parents before them for whom the majority mindset was to find a secure job that pays the bills and put food on the table, their children and children’s children have been raised with the cultural belief that merely providing security and comfort for our families isn’t enough.
Instead we’re led to believe we must find a meaningful vocation that congruently connects our talents and experience with our values, also whilst moving in the direction of some greater service to others that makes our lives more worthwhile (also, by the way, with a decent compensation package, colleagues we love and a boss we don’t hate, in a place we want to live. Is it any wonder millennials are so overwhelmed, anxious and stressed?!)
Only when we find that magical (and frankly near impossible) combination will everything click into place and will we feel fulfilled, energised, content, and be able to relax and enjoy life.
And then I watched the new Pixar movie, Soul.
Disney+ wasn’t the first place I expected to give me a potentially life-changing perspective, but hear I am reflecting and sharing how it’s influenced my view.
Without wanting to give too much of the plot away, the stunning new animated feature (released straight to Disney+ in December) tackles some deep, existential concepts.
Primary amongst them is the distinction between this lofty concept of ‘Purpose’ being essential for life satisfaction, and the more down-to-earth, achievable and less singular idea of finding our ‘Spark’.
Almost certainly created for the millennial generation who have grown up as Pixar viewers (I struggle to see how young children will derive much more than puzzlement from the movie) Soul tackles head-on the notion that we all have a singular purpose.
The main protagonist Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx)) has a tremendous talent for jazz piano and believes his life’s purpose is to gig every night alongside the jazz names he idolises in New York’s coolest jazz clubs. It’s something Joe has always dreamed of, so the fact that he has reached his 50s and never quite made it serves to him as a source of major disappointment.
Without wanting to reveal too many spoilers, the movie later takes us beyond earth into a conceptual metaphysical zone called the Great Before (kind of a pre-life version of heaven) where new Souls gather elements of their personality in preparation for a life on earth. In this realm there is a great hall called the Place of Everything where as yet unborn souls get to experiment with all kinds of activities (baking, sports, music etc) as they build up a set of attributes that will form their characters on earth.
It’s in this realm that we meet Soul 22, a mischievous young soul (voiced by Tina Fey) who has been in the Great Before for thousands of years, but still not found her spark, despite the best mentoring efforts of passed souls like Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Muhammad Ali and Gandhi. Soul 22 has become highly despondent about never finding her spark and as a result resists every attempt to send her to the earthly realm which she imagines will be a completely joyless, endless toil, and as such, she’d much rather stay in the Great Before where she is comfortable.
Until one day, by accident, Soul 22 finds herself thrust into a human body in New York City and, after getting over her initial trauma from the bustle, noise, traffic and everything else, begins to experience joys like New York pizza, the warm jets of air that emerge through the pavement grills above the subway, talented buskers on subway platforms, lollipops and much more besides. She finds sparks all around and serves to remind us how joyous life can be when we remember to tune into the little pleasures.
Meanwhile, in the metaphysical realm, we meet ‘lost souls’; dark, depressed, slovenly blob-like creatures that mope around muttering to themselves about purpose, or whose ‘purposes’ have crossed the fine line into obsessions. They have become so caught up in the idea that purpose trumps all else that they have disconnected completely from the joys of life that are there to experience every day. Conversely, we also encounter souls who are ‘in the zone’ – so immersed in enjoyment of their sparks that they have found temporary states of what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defined as ‘flow’ state.
Another key character we meet is Joe’s barber, Dez, who is so skilled at his craft and so full of life that Joe assumes he must be living his purpose. But when questioned we learn that Dez’s lifelong dream was actually to become a Vet, until his daughter got sick, and then, as he explains, “barber school is a lot cheaper than veterinarian school.” Nevertheless, Dez has grown to find joy in his job because he gets to talk to people all day and make them feel good with sharp new haircuts. He doesn’t dwell on never becoming a vet, because the spark he derives from his daily interactions has become more than an ample replacement.
At one point one of giant kind of administrative staff in the Great Before (voiced by Richard Ayoade) scoffs at the very concept of purpose, deriding it as one of the words the mentors use that don’t really mean anything.
And in another extremely poignant scene, one earthly character who we have been led to assume is the very embodiment of living their life’s purpose, hits us with the pointed line: “I heard this story about a fish. He swims up to an older fish and says: “I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean.” “The ocean?” the older fish says, “that’s what you’re in right now.” “This”, says the young fish, “this is water. What I want is the ocean!”
Soul is striking in how its core philosophy rides so against the grain of what has become the unchallenged concept of how we should think about our lives on this earth, and it has certainly changed my perspective.
I’ve learned that, when we find ourselves feeling a little lost in life, a bit down and out of sorts, one answer can be to work on a vision of something more fulfilling and make plans to move towards that. That is still important if you find yourself in a negative life situation and need to make a change for the good of your own health, or other compelling reason. I still also believe it’s important to set goals and work towards them. Motivation, a sense of direction, and overcoming challenges is how we learn and grow as humans.
But not to let the pursuit of an end destination or search for a narrowly-defined purpose become so much the focus that I neglect to engage in the many pleasures of the world around me on a daily basis. To understand that if I pin all my hopes on reaching that end goal I’m going to be mightily disappointed when I reach it, because it could never live up to my expectations – especially when I realise I’ve neglected to tune in to the many little sparks that could have brought me daily moments of joy along the way: The tastes, sights, smells, sounds that we can find all around us, the pleasure of a great conversation with a friend, losing ourselves in a great book, playing football, tennis, guitar…
Right after publishing this article I’m going to do two things:
- Step out onto my balcony and breathe in the air on this beautiful sunny Amsterdam morning. Enjoy looking at the birds in the trees, then
- Jot down a long reference list of all the little ‘sparks’ that bring me pleasure in my life, that I can refer to daily
Let’s stop obsessing over finding our life’s purpose for a while and instead tune into our sparks.
What are your sparks?
