On Living with Purpose

One of the most compelling pieces of wisdom I’ve ever heard.

One of the most compelling pieces of wisdom I’ve ever heard is this:
The opposite of depression is not happiness, but purpose.

I’ve carried this thought with me for years, turning it over like a smooth stone in my pocket. When I think back to the happiest seasons of my life, they weren’t always about joy in the traditional sense. They were about flow. They were about being in conversation with my creative self, my spiritual self, and feeling—sometimes wordlessly—that I was on path. That I was living into a purpose, even if I couldn’t name it exactly.

We often confuse purpose with something lofty—save-the-world kind of stuff. But I think of purpose more like resonance. Alignment. It’s that feeling when our inner life matches our outer life, when the truth of who we are is reflected in the way we’re living.

For more than 20 years, I’ve written alongside my friend Laurie Wagner. In her Wild Writing practice, she describes it as “truing up” with ourselves. Like a carpenter who measures a piece of wood against a straightedge, we use the page to find our alignment. To write what’s true, even when it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes we share it, sometimes we don’t. But the act of being honest with ourselves—that, too, feels like purpose.

Earlier this year, I joined a 12-week business incubator here in the Bay Area. At the start, we each set an intention. Mine was simple: I want to feel on purpose and energized by my work.

By the end of those 12 weeks, I had stumbled into SoulCollage®—a practice I now love so much that I became certified to facilitate groups. I don’t think SoulCollage is my capital-P “Purpose.” But it has become a beautiful vehicle for my voice. A place where my gifts can land, where my energy flows easily. And that’s what living on purpose feels like to me: not a singular calling, but a steady stream of practices, communities, and creative acts that keep bringing me into alignment.

So today I don’t have an answer, but I do have a question:
What do you know about purpose? And how do you recognize when you are living in yours?