The title of this post is a George Bernard Shaw quote I employ with my daughters in the hopes I will impress upon them, in a small way with a few words, what I will say here with many more words than their attention spans will allow. How many times have you heard that some person or other is on a quest to “find themselves?” Many times we hear it in relation to a young person starting out in life to find their purpose, or when an older person jokes about what they want to be when they “grow up.”
However, the older I get and the more experiences I have and relationships I develop, the more convinced I am that each individual’s purpose in life is to draw their own map. Throw out the recipe book, the paint-by-numbers kit, and anything anyone ever told you about who or what you should be—and chart your own course.