You're defining your purpose the wrong way (and how to fix it)
Have you ever felt like you don’t know exactly what you want to do with your life?
Something like a latent impatience to discover ‘that thing’ that will give it all meaning.
Your purpose. Your vision.
It can be maddening to watch others fully devoted to ‘that thing’ they’ve envisioned for themselves, while you keep wondering if you even chose the right path.
It’s perfectly normal. Many of us suffer through that for years.
To illustrate, let me tell you the story of Gabrielle.
Maybe her inner struggle will help yours.
——
Gabrielle was kneeling by the bed.
At just eleven years old, she watched her mother slowly fade away, sick with tuberculosis.
She died shortly after.
Her father, whom she barely ever saw, took her and her two sisters to a convent, promising to come back for them soon.
It was the last time she ever saw him.
——
In that strict, grey place, the nuns imposed fierce discipline. There was no room for distractions, or joy, or even the slightest decoration to please the eye.
Her life would have been miserable, if not for a handful of novels by Pierre Decourcelle, known for his romantic fiction.
She had discovered the forbidden stash hidden inside a convent wardrobe — confiscated from whoever managed to smuggle them past those thick walls.
Most of the stories followed the Cinderella pattern: a dispossessed young woman who ends up living in a palace by some twist of fate.
But what captivated Gabrielle the most was the intricate description of every dress the heroines wore.
That’s how she endured seven years, until at eighteen she left for a boarding school. There, she discovered theater.
She did absolutely everything to become a star: acting, singing, dancing. But deep down, she felt it wasn’t the right path to the success she was chasing.
——
Even for the most outstanding actresses of the era, it was hard to make a living from the stage alone.
So most of them sought to win over some wealthy admirer with the means to support them.
A ‘Sugar Daddy’, as we’d call it today.
It wasn’t long before Gabrielle found hers: Etienne Balsan.
Balsan, the heir to a considerable fortune, invited her to live in his château. There, Gabrielle became just another courtesan.
She had achieved her dream.
Or so she thought.
——
It didn’t take long before Gabrielle started feeling, once again, that something was missing.
She lived in a luxurious castle. She had all the clothes she could desire.
And still, she felt empty.
Wandering through the halls of that palace one day, she entered Etienne’s room and, without knowing exactly why, opened his wardrobes and began trying on his clothes.
Something clicked inside her.
She felt liberated.
Instead of the uncomfortable dresses and corsets imposed by the suffocating standards of women’s fashion, men’s trousers and shirts were infinitely more comfortable to wear.
It wasn’t about ‘looking’ like a man — she felt entirely feminine. It was about wearing clothes that didn’t restrict her movement.
In that moment, she understood the root of the dissatisfaction she had always felt.
Everything she had pursued throughout her life — the theater, the palace life, the men she had seduced — was the product of a continuous search for control and freedom.
The control and freedom she had never had, for as long as she could remember.
She realized she had always envied the power men held, and above all, their right to wear practical, comfortable clothing while women resigned themselves to a daily torture.
From the very first moment Gabrielle walked through the château dressed like that, she turned every head. She was finally in her element: power, transmitted through her clothes.
It was impossible not to notice the shift in her personality. If she had been captivating before, now she was overwhelming.
The other courtesans noticed instantly, and wanted to emulate her style. Now she was the center — they spent hours visiting her room, asking for advice, wearing whatever she suggested.
It was only a matter of time before that style transcended the walls of the château. Before her declaration of freedom went viral.
She was ready to hold the world in her hand.
Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel was an iconoclast who defined a milestone in the history of fashion: something as radical as the liberation of women’s clothing... by making it look more like men’s.
But Coco didn’t know exactly what she wanted, so she chased the ‘wrong’ goals for many years.
Fortunately, she never stopped searching. She never settled. And until her spirit had the certainty of having found her purpose, she did not rest.
How many people in this world settle for ‘whatever life gives them’?
How many don’t even bother to ask themselves what their purpose might be?
We live in a dangerous era where we’re exposed to hundreds of models of ‘success’ through media, and we don’t take enough time to reflect in silence about ourselves.
To try to define the vision we want to focus on.
You know what the problem is? We think our purpose is something we have to ‘become’.
That until we have the money, the connections, the degree, or the right job, we won’t be ‘it’.
Your purpose is not out there. It’s not something you ‘grow into’.
You already are it, even if you don’t know it yet.
Your purpose is already inside you. You just have to remove everything that’s covering it.
Sadly, we’re conditioned from childhood — without malice — by the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
They certainly don’t ask it with bad intentions, but it predisposes us to something: first we have to grow up, in order to be something.
First we have to get this and that, in order to be whole and happy.
No.
We must understand that wholeness and happiness lie in realizing what we already are.
Discovering ourselves. Knowing and accepting ourselves.
The search is internal.
You are a sculpture hidden inside an immense block of marble.
You just have to remove everything that doesn’t belong.
Your doubts. Your fears. Your uncertainty.
This step may be difficult, because it demands real emotional intelligence.
The sensitivity to know what it is that truly moves you.
But until you manage that — until you achieve a true introspection — you’ll keep drifting.
You’ll keep searching for something more, like Gabrielle.
Much Love and Bliss,
Jesús