Personally I found the ‘Purpose Driven Life’ movement unhelpful and more often than not opening the door to depression.

The problem is that when most people talk about purpose they are imagining something grand, something experienced with every breath we take… One wonders is the need for a purpose isn’t a desire that what we do is be recognize by others?

The reality is that purpose like meaning is a subjective experience and not something that exists in and of itself as an measurable objective experience. We do love to measure things and you would think we would be better at it.

As Joseph Campbell put it with regards to the question of life having meaning (purpose) “Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”

As such ‘purpose’ may be the experiencing and bring to consciousness our experiences as they are.

“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” Joseph Campbell

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” Joseph Campbell

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” – Joseph Campbell