This is an age-old question that I have heard asked and read asked repeatedly, but have never heard anyone answer, verbally or in print in any meaningful way that I found to be actionable. It is always asked in a way that would lead one to believe that someone, somewhere out there has the answer. And there always only seems to be one answer. Get that right and win the jackpot. Thing is, if someone had, we’d all know by now, wouldn’t we?

Is this really a question we should be asking of others? How would any other person know the meaning of MY life? The only one who knows ourselves intimately inside and out is ourself. Certainly, we all have blind spots and in my experience our spouses, family, friends, counselors and therapists are all able to help us see them – and then, only if we’re willing to hear – but only we truly know our inner thoughts, feelings and motivations. Shouldn’t we be asking it of ourselves? Shouldn’t we have the primary hand in deciding the answer?

The meaning of my life comes down to my purpose for being here. Again, not something I would expect anyone else to be able to tell me. I would expect to learn or discover that primarily on my own, and with the help of those close enough to me that I could bounce my thoughts off of them and receive their honest feedback.

It is not someone else’s responsibility to tell you the meaning of your life, I believe it is for each of us to discover. I see nothing anywhere that leads me to believe that it’s all just cosmically preordained. That we have no real say or choice in the matter. That life unfolds in the way it unfolds and we’re really just passengers on an eighty to ninety year joyride that ends who knows where. I believe every one of us has been given the power of choice, and given that power for a reason.

Many of us, myself included, believe in God, or a higher power that – if we truly believed in them – we should be able to ask that question of and get some type of answer that would assist to move us in a direction. And yet, for so many who do profess belief or faith, the answer to the question remains staggeringly unanswered. Yet, I believe that answer is available to every person who wants to know. I believe it has always been available and I further believe that there are many people who have discovered their answer and have lived it with their lives. We’ve read about them and celebrated them.

Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, Steve Jobs, Charlie “Bird” Parker, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Viktor Frankl. These people and thousands more decided in themselves through experience, education, circumstance and determination what they would dedicate themselves to achieving, then went and achieved it. Edison didn’t find the right filament somewhere between eight hundred and a thousand times. Curie overcame poor laboratory conditions and lack of funding for “fringe” science. Jobs started Apple in his bedroom, before moving to the larger space of his garage. Parker developed bebop by practicing up to fifteen hours a day for years. Mother Teresa chose to go to “the poorest of the poor” because no one else was. Dr. King lived his entire life experiencing the racial prejudice he fought to change in America. Frankl survived three German concentration camps, during which he developed a revolutionary approach to psychiatry.

None of them started with the end in mind. They started where they were and with the little they had. But along with their little, they had an idea, a passion, a desire, a determination. They would not quit for people, circumstances, social or governmental pressures. They were and are called innovators, disruptors, revolutionaries, out of the box thinkers. They saw need, lack and problems and worked to create plenty, provision and answers. Do you believe you have purpose to have the kind of impact that these had?

I do.

I believe your true passion is your meaning. Not passing whim or fancy. Passion. The thing you would dedicate yourself to if you absolutely knew you could not fail. The thing you’d tackle if time and money were no object. The thing you would want to do regardless of opinion, sentiment or popularity. The thing you would do because inside of you IT MUST BE DONE. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else as long as it makes sense to you.

Research says that eight percent of people live this way. The rest quit because it’s too hard, there’s too many obstacles, it’s too complicated or harder than they’d first thought. They settle – they stop trying to live their dreams, and settle for enduring their years. They become unwilling to pay the price and as a result, they never get the answer to their question. What is the meaning of my life becomes what could have been…if only.

I’ve learned several truths about the meaning of life. The first is, there’s always more than one for each of us. No passion is purely linear, they all have offshoots, branches or side streets. But those always flow from and back to the primary passion. Most all who achieve want to help others do the same. Passion is self-replicating. A vision for your community can lead in all sorts of directions, impacting all sorts of people, creating all manner of passions in others.

The second is that it’s never too late to start. I know a man who birthed a vision while landing with General MacArthur in the Philippines during World War Two. It took him over forty years to realize it. He never quit until he achieved. In between he enjoyed a career and raised a family, but he never let go of his passion. I had the privilege of working with him in it when I visited that country in 1988.

The third is the answer is inside of myself. Too many people spend too much time looking outside themselves for the answer to the question. That’s why it gets asked so often and in varying ways. If I believe in a God Who created me for a purpose – which I do – He would be unjust to not tell me what it was, and He would be malevolent in withholding it from me.

The fourth is that I – like all of created life – am not accidental. I have purpose and meaning. I am here for a reason. Psalm 139 says “all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” That required planning, forethought and intent. If the God I believe in is big enough to have created an entire universe, I believe He can handle the few years I have in this lifetime.

If you’ve read this far, I encourage you to take a purposeful pause and think on these things. Ask yourself in your innermost place of self-assessment and honesty – what would I dedicate my life to if I knew I could not fail? If you’re not on that path currently, ask yourself what one step you could take TODAY to get started. If you are, keep going. There are people in this life who need the result of the passion you will bring. We were born to be world changers, all of us. Some greater, some lesser, but impactful all. My prayer is that in finding your path, you’d begin to write your story in such a way that not only answers the question in your life, but points others to the path created for them to walk to answer it in theirs.