I first discovered my purpose as a writer at age 14. High school was a challenging experience as I was socially ostracised and sometimes bullied. One Friday night, after a particularly rough week, I found myself sitting alone in front of the family computer, feeling dejected.
It seemed that no one understood what I was going through, not even my parents, and it felt as though I was on my own in the world.
Suddenly, something washed over me. I opened up a word document on the computer and began typing. In a matter of minutes, I had written a poem onto the screen in front of me.
The poem expressed how I felt, sharing the depth of my emotions. As I completed the poem, I felt calm and present. It had healed me, and although I didn’t know it at the time, I had found my calling: to write.
I wrote behind closed doors, during lunch breaks at school, and late at night when everyone was sleeping. That year alone, I produced 170 poems as well as a series of abstract prose, and I haven’t stopped putting pen to page since.
I didn’t write because it looked cool or because someone told me I should; I wrote because everything made sense when I did. When life felt confusing, I used the page as an outlet for my feelings and as a way to sort through my thoughts.
I wasn’t thinking about how I could help people or change the world with my words at the time, nor was I thinking about how much money I could make doing it. I just knew that I loved to write and that when I wrote, I felt alive. Whenever I touched my fingertips to the keyboard, I knew who I was and what I wanted to spend my life doing.
Over the years, my writing evolved from pieces that revealed my teenage angst, which often gave my teachers a cause for concern, into uplifting self-help content. That same, insatiable urge to write followed me all the way through high school and into adulthood.
It not only shaped the career path I chose and the achievements that followed, but it also brought deep meaning to my entire life. In many ways, it was also the reason I overcame my depression at age 19.
It is because of the heart-opening transformation discovering my calling has brought to me that, today, I am convinced that connecting with your purpose is the most powerful thing you can do if you are serious about living a life at the end of which, you know that you have explored all that is truly possible for you.
Knowing why we are here is the difference between an empty life and a full one, between someone who never makes it big and someone who rises to the top, and between an average day and a rewarding one. This
is why taking the time to discover your purpose matters greatly.
How will you know that you have found your purpose? There will be no
question about it.
You will feel it. The hairs will stand up on your arms and legs. Goosebumps will ripple across your body. Your heart will open. You will feel connected to the world around you and within you. Tears of inspiration will fill your eyes or even flow freely down your face.
It doesn’t matter if it takes you two days, two months, two years, or even two decades to find it. It just matters greatly that you find it. It will inspire you endlessly and give you every reason to not only live, but live fully.
So, seek the defining moment where you meet your purpose and it meets you because, when that moment happens, you will find yourself standing at the start of a radically different life.
