On: Purpose

and why I let it go

My entire life I’ve carried those questions: “why am I here?” and “what’s my purpose?” The older I get, the more it weighs on me, giving me a new set of furrowed brow lines rather than smile lines. I’ve sat with this for a while, asking myself why I care so deeply. Asking the questions so loudly just reverberates this idea that I, who I am in this moment, is not enough. Not whole.

“Maybe tomorrow,” I mutter each night, disappointed that the answer hasn’t come to me like a Nobel Prize-worthy invention.

Being from Los Angeles, the land of busyness, ambition seems to be the true currency. And you need a lot of it to survive here. Although you’ve accomplished most of your to-do list, you’re consistently 10 steps behind everyone else and you have to know who you are, what you want and work relentlessly to build an empire everyone is vying to create.

I recently returned from a two-month work trip to the South of France. Marseille, to be exact. The person I was going into it was vastly different than the person I was coming out. Just before this trip, I was sent to the ER for the third time for what ended up being my worst anxiety attack yet. More on this in another post…

Marseille was never on my list of places to visit. In fact, everyone I spoke to about it beforehand insisted I don’t bring any jewelry, I don’t walk anywhere alone and I stay vigilant. I would like to personally invite each of those people to spend a night in Downtown Los Angeles and come back to me with that they really think “danger” is, thank you very much. Marseille was a *dream.* And the job? Fabulous!

Working as a stunt performer/double and an actor obviously comes with it’s own trials and tribulations, however, I have successfully detached myself from believing my purpose is within them. And this was when something clicked.

Walking around France, I started to notice how people live. I mean, really live. They’re not obsessed with becoming someone. In fact, they’re just… being. Sitting, enjoying, living, being. They are unapologetically themselves- imperfect, present, always up for a good laugh, and completely uninterested in selling themselves as a marketable thing. Not mistaking busyness for meaning. Value for status. Not concerned with purpose in the slightest.

Don’t say it, don’t say it…. “I think I could live here!” I spat out, like a typical American dying at the first sight of peace.

Then, the lightbulb flickered on…

The life of your dreams doesn’t have to be built on exhaustion.

What if dreaming big and living well could coexist? Some of my best ideas have come when I was well rested or doing boring and mundane things. Never, ever in a rush. Really, what great thing has ever come from regularly being in fight or flight?

Maybe purpose isn’t about striving for the next biggest, greatest thing. Maybe it’s about paying attention:

To the way you feel in the morning.

To what fills your cup vs. empties it.

To the laughter created between you and loved ones, or you and strangers and the little moments in passing.

Maybe it’s about smiling at someone who genuinely needed a little pick-me-up.

Maybe it’s about taking the time to figure out who you are in the stillness so you can bring the very best version of yourself to the everyday interactions.

Purpose doesn’t have to be a spotlight. Maybe it’s just the quiet knowing that you’re living with the integrity of being yourself.

And for now, that’s enough. And so am I.