Perhaps the clues to the life that feels like you were there all along.
I’ve been thinking about how many people I’ve worked with, met, or simply crossed paths with over the years seem to have something in common. They followed the path that made sense. Get a job. Earn money. Build a career. Choose something respectable. Something that looks good on paper. Something that gives you security, status, a future. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of that. But I wonder how often we stop to ask a different question: Does this life actually feel like me?
From such a young age, we’re often encouraged to think about what we want to become rather than who we already are. What subjects are useful. What careers are sensible. What will give us a good future. What will make our parents proud. What will provide security. What looks good on a CV. What will work on LinkedIn. But we aren’t always encouraged to notice the quieter clues. The things we’re naturally drawn towards. The questions we keep returning to. The environments where we come alive.
I think about myself as a child. My choices. My relationships with others. The things I was naturally drawn towards. And I remember how much I noticed. How much I felt. How much I carried. I was always drawn to the human psyche or, perhaps more simply, to human nature in its purest form. I was curious about people. Why we behave the way we do. What sits beneath our reactions. What connects us. What separates us. The emotions we show, and the ones we hide. I didn’t have the language for any of this then. And I certainly didn’t know what to do with that interest. It wasn’t an obvious career choice at the time. Because we grow up learning to choose a path based on what is practical, secure and likely to give us a good future. And somewhere along the way, we can become so focused on choosing the right path that we forget to ask a much more personal question: What has been quietly calling me all along?
But nobody can really tell you who you are going to become. And sometimes the things that make the most sense at eighteen don’t make the most sense at thirty, forty or fifty. We adapt. We learn the rules. We become good at our jobs. We become good at coping. We become good at being the person the environment needs us to be. And sometimes, years later, we look around and realise something feels wrong. Not necessarily because the career is objectively wrong. But because somewhere along the way, we became disconnected from ourselves. That disconnection can be difficult to recognise. It can look like burnout. Constant exhaustion. Feeling trapped. Losing curiosity. Living for weekends. Trying to convince yourself that you should be grateful. Trying to make yourself like a life that no longer feels like yours. And sometimes we respond by trying to become even better at the life we’re already living. Another qualification. Another promotion. Another productivity system. Another attempt to fix ourselves. When perhaps the deeper question is: What if there is nothing wrong with you? What if you have simply spent too long adapting to a life that doesn’t fit?
I don’t think finding your path means discovering one perfect purpose and suddenly knowing exactly what you’re meant to do. Perhaps it’s much more subtle than that. Perhaps it’s learning to notice yourself again. What gives you energy? What drains you? What conversations make you feel more alive? What environments allow you to breathe? What are you endlessly curious about? What did you love before you learned what was sensible?What parts of yourself have you had to silence to belong? And perhaps, most importantly:
What kind of life allows you to feel most like yourself?
Some people may never ask themselves these questions. And that’s okay. But for others, the questions keep returning. Quietly at first. Then more loudly. Until the exhaustion, dissatisfaction or feeling of being lost becomes impossible to ignore. Maybe that’s not failure. Maybe it’s information. A sign that something in you is asking to be heard. Because life is temporary. And I find that both frightening and strangely clarifying. We have this one life. So perhaps the question isn’t simply: “What career should I have?” Perhaps it’s: “What kind of life do I want to be living while I’m here?”
And perhaps the path towards that answer begins much earlier than we realise, with learning to notice the person we have been all along. My wish for others is to find within themselves the essence of their own living purpose that quiet knowing of what calls them and to be brave enough to follow it. Even when the path isn’t obvious. Even when it doesn’t make sense on paper. Even when it takes time to understand where it is leading. Perhaps purpose isn’t something we find. Perhaps it is something we slowly come to recognise.