Purpose, Part I: Actions for Change

Last week, inspired by a conversation with a friend, I asked my subscribers their thoughts on the “purpose” of my newsletter. (To my delight, many of you replied!) Some responded with a brief tagline, while others wrote up more detailed evaluations. It was both wonderful and insightful to read them all.

I think, for the next few installments, I’d like to explore some of those responses with you.

—

#1 Actions for change

“Maybe it’s connecting personal transformative experiences (positive or negative) into actions for change. To me - that’s what your meltdown story in Japan was about,” one subscriber wrote. They later add, “I am totally inspired by people who want to change the world for the better and dare to stick their necks out and be vulnerable.”

—

I used to be a therapist. (You probably knew that; I talk about it fairly often.) I worked in college mental health for the vast majority of my tenure. I always found that population particularly compelling: the presentations were diverse, with everything from Adjustment Disorder and poor study skills to Major Depressive Disorder and psychosis. My clients ranged from overachieving seventeen year olds embarking on their first years of adulthood, to fully grown adults looking for new dreams to chase. The only thing they really had in common was the fact that they were at college — and with that, facing a pretty major transition point in their lives.

I found a deep sense of purpose in working with university students. I felt like a lighthouse for them. Growing up is hard! The world is strange! Brains suck sometimes! No one should have to navigate that alone. And it was my job, my duty, to light the way while they figured it out.

It was exhausting. Merciless. It drained the very life from me — but I loved it still.

Don’t you see? I had a direct line to the pulse of the world. People came to me with pain, and I helped them to work through it. I was tangibly, indisputably making the world a better place. I was doing something good. And honestly, grueling as it was, it was a fucking privilege.

So, when I left that career behind, I grieved. I was relieved, to be sure, but I felt like I lost something important — something that connected me to that pulse, that mana stream, that thing that tied my time and energy to a clear force of good. And I’ve spent a long time wondering how to get that back.

I used to tell myself, it’s enough to be there for my friends when they’re struggling, or to ask a stranger how their day is going, or to simply exist with good intentions.

But it’s not enough. It was never enough. That light in me — that desire to have a positive impact on the world — is as powerful as my desire to create. It’s a compulsion. I am not me without it.

I made this website because I wanted to fill the world with art. I started this series because I wanted to fill the world with light.

I can’t be a therapist to the world — I could hardly manage a full-time caseload — but I can share my stories. I can tell you all I’ve learned. I can model the strategies that have helped me to find my own light.

So yes: this newsletter, this installment, is about promoting change. And if it helps just one of you, even just one, it’s doing its job.