"Contemplating Life’s Purpose: The Annual Birthday Existential Crisis"

Why my birthdays always suck

existential

My palms were sweaty. My mind jumped around from one thought to another. I tried to read but could only get through a couple of pages. I was getting frustrated, and it was still only 6 a.m.

The early morning is when I'm at my serenest, surrounded by the sound of birds, my books and my journal. Yet, I couldn't remove that feeling of butterflies in my stomach.

It was Tuesday, the 22nd of August, and I had just turned 55. (Nearly three weeks ago)

Instead of celebrating birthdays, it has become a custom for me to question myself, my achievements and my purpose. It's not how one should honour birthdays, but my body does it without warning.

What then compounds my misery is the guilt I carry around. Why am I unhappy on this particular day, unlike D, who just threw a fantastic party over the weekend? (And was so happy during the party)

I felt a breeze through the open windows and saw the trees swaying. It was drizzling ever so lightly. I got out of the chair and was soon walking under the rain.

As always, my soul talks to me when I walk, helping me understand what's happening within me. My birthday had heightened the significance of my struggles. I'm always searching for the big questions and rarely satisfied with the answers. Purpose is something that is always at the front of my thinking.

As the rain gained strength, my thoughts also quickened to match the pace of the droplets falling from the sky.

"Why isn't it enough," asked Kevin Garvey in episode nine of season one of The Leftovers.¹ Kevin was struggling with why he was unhappy despite living what looked like a perfect life from the outside. He had a wonderful family around him and was the respected police chief of his small town.

His father then tells him he's not alone in thinking this way. "Every man rebels against that idea that this is fucking it."

Then, as the rain turned into a downpour, I started to run back home, and my thoughts turned to another Kevin. This time, Kevin Kaiser from

The Rewilded Soul

and his post on Purpose.

There are two purposes: the 'out there' one, which approximately equates to the rat race, and the chase for better and more. (success, prestige and achievements.) The other more noble purpose he calls the 'now and here' is that we are our purpose. We are here to get to know ourselves more deeply.

That deeply resonated with me. I equated the idea with Maslow's hierarchy of needs—a five-tier model of human needs.

From the bottom of the order upwards, the needs are physiological (food and clothing), safety (job security), love and belonging needs (friendship), esteem, and self-actualisation. Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to higher ideals.

We are our purpose. We are here to become more aware and grow in consciousness.

It's been years since I attended my first ever 'Personal Growth' event. I went there searching for an elusive blueprint that would change the trajectory of my life—I went there to find my life's purpose.

I can't say I've found why I'm alive or actively live on purpose, but I am closer to knowing what I enjoy doing. I have also grown in self-awareness and better understand what I need to do to improve myself and the environment around me.

Therefore, my struggle with finding my purpose all these years is not a problem with me per se. Instead, the issue lies with how society has loaded the concept of purpose so heavily that it can be scary and have far too many contradictory ideas.

Adults start asking kids what they want to be when they grow up as soon as they enter school. Likewise, kids feel pressured to clarify what career they want to spend the rest of their lives in as soon as they graduate from college.

We want purpose to be this magical mission that God has whispered in our ears. It's like we must all have destinies to be fulfilled. But that thought alone is so heavy that it paralyses us and makes us go in circles for years.

We all have an inner desire to improve ourselves and the World, which is the precursor to our never-ending search for purpose.

True, our ego is usually at play. It demands that we do something, become something, and save the World like a superhero. Perhaps if we stopped asking ourselves and others what's our purpose and instead asked:

"What can I do that makes me useful and necessary to both myself and my community?"

When the weight of the word purpose is lifted, it becomes easier to have a conversation with ourselves to find out how best we can walk on the path of our goal.

Sometimes, personal growth is seen as a luxury, and the only thing that should matter is making money and putting food on the table. That can't be further from the truth.

The more we grow in self-awareness throughout the World, the richer our whole World will be. When we lack direction and don't feel useful and necessary, we don't know what's important to us and haven’t clarified the values that propel us into action.

People think purpose means that we must embark on fantastic quests like climbing Everest, making a Billion dollars, or helping eradicate hunger in a remote 3rd world village. The reality is not so.

We exist to know and be ourselves—our true selves. Not the one designed by parents, teachers and society.

Pursuing and accomplishing those big, hairy, audacious goals can take you to a deep uncovering of the self. But the fear is we lose ourselves in the chase and see them as the end, not the means.

The end goal must be that 'we' are the purpose. That we have delved deep enough into our psyches to appreciate that we are enough. That we are all somehow connected. And, in appreciating ourselves, those around us, and the World— we finally discover and become our purpose.

1. An American supernatural drama television series created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta that aired in 2014.