One Big Purpose

How many of us spend our lives searching for our One Big Purpose?

Probably most of us. We want to matter. We want to belong. We want to know that when we are gone, something of us remains.

Someone once told me that people try to ensure this in one of two ways. They have children, extending themselves into future generations. Or they build something tangible. A business. A piece of art. A song. A story. Some echo of themselves that lingers after they’re gone.

In Fahrenheit 451, Granger describes his grandfather’s influence on him. He says that if you lifted his skull, you would find the ridges of his grandfather’s thumbprint pressed into the folds of his mind. Permanent. Indelible.

For a long time, I thought purpose worked the same way. That it lived somewhere outside of me, waiting to be discovered through the right role, the right relationship, the right belief system, or the right accomplishment.

So I tried things on.

Maybe it was God.
Maybe it was love.
Maybe it was work.
Maybe it was becoming impressive enough, good enough, chosen enough.

Each identity fit for a while. Each one promised meaning. And when it stopped delivering, I reached for the next.

That’s the problem with treating purpose as something you acquire. You are always grasping. Always reaching for the next thing that might finally make you feel real.

The older I get, the more I suspect that this is a misunderstanding.

I’m starting to believe that each person’s One Big Purpose is far simpler and far more difficult than we imagine.

It is to arrive.

To show up.

To love and to allow ourselves to be loved.

Once you truly arrive in your own life, your natural gifts begin to work without effort. Your presence leaves fingerprints without strategy. Your way of seeing, listening, and caring shapes others quietly and irreversibly.

I resisted this truth for a long time.

First, I learned how to be a good girl. I buried myself in religion, hiding my instincts and questions behind rules and expectations, confusing obedience with virtue and silence with goodness.

Then came the years of chasing connection. Romance. Belonging. I became very good at holding emotional space and believing in potential. I spent too much time tending to what could be, instead of asking what was.

After that came the striving. The work. The credentials. The proof. I told myself that meaning would arrive through accomplishment, that if I achieved enough, I would finally earn my place.

I thought my purpose lived somewhere else.

In God.
In a partner.
In success.

What a farce that was.

My One Big Purpose is not to become someone else.
It is not to justify my existence.
It is not to be impressive, chosen, or useful.

My One Big Purpose is simply to arrive.
To be present.
To be myself.

When I stopped reaching and finally arrived, I could see what had been true all along.

My purpose was never to search for meaning.

It was to carry it.

To bring steadiness into rooms that felt scattered.
To listen without urgency.
To speak with care and precision.

To make space
where honesty could breathe.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend 🖤