Purpose Isn't Found. It's Built.

When I stopped drinking, I ended up with more questions than I could find answers for. Is this the career I want? What is my purpose? What am I supposed to do with my life? I thought if I removed alcohol the answer would reveal itself. Like the purpose was just waiting for me on the other side.

It wasn’t. I kept searching until the search itself became a problem. I wanted to know what direction I was going in before committing to it. Some evidence that what I chose would matter before I started. So I kept every option open and called it patience. Refusing to choose is still a choice.

Obviously no one wants to wake up years later and realize they made the wrong choice. Searching and weighing your options can tell you if something sounds meaningful, if it fits the story you have about yourself, if it looks good on the outside. But it can’t tell you what will actually happen when you wake up on a random day in the future.

Building Rudra has made this clear to me. I can sit alone and think about the work for hours, and as soon as I have an honest conversation with a client, all of my assumptions get reset. Whatever I was thinking has to survive in the real world, with other people. I can’t know that by thinking more.

Purpose has worked the same way. I didn’t wake up one day knowing exactly what I wanted to do. I took steps toward what I was interested in and slowly let go of activities and people who no longer aligned with where I was going. The direction became clearer because I kept moving forward, even if it was slow and one step at a time. And sometimes the answer is no. I started a financial newsletter to publish short-selling ideas. It took me months to sit down and publish my first article. Every time I sat down to get started, I would find a reason not to do it. It had been something I wanted to do for years, but at least now I knew. I liked the idea of it more than the work. The avoiding was the answer. That wasn’t lost time. The key was observing myself during that part. Was I more present? Did I keep thinking about it after I was done? Did the hard parts make me want to stop or did they make me want to get better.

If you’re waiting for clarity, start with what keeps coming back to you. What you dismiss or explain away, but circle back to a few months later. Put real work into it, not just research. Do something that requires an answer, gives you feedback. Make the call. Take the class. Help one person. Put your idea in front of someone else and see what the response is.

You don’t need to decide after your first step. All you need to do is give yourself something tangible to look at, not more searching or thinking.

The question is not what you were meant to do.

What are you willing to try before you know?