Finding Purpose in the Present

We’d been circling for almost an hour.

The same ideas, reworded. The same challenges, examined from all different angles. That particular flavor of frustration was settling in. The one where you can feel the answer is close but remains elusively just out of reach.

And underneath the frustration, a quieter voice: This shouldn’t be this hard. Why can’t we figure this out?

I’m guessing you’ve been there too.

Then I looked across the table and noticed something on her notebook. A tall, empty rectangle drawn in the middle of the page. I don’t know if it was a previously unfinished thought or just a random doodle, but for some reason, in that moment, everything clicked.

I asked if I could use her notebook and that rectangle. She slid it over. And the ideas that had been formless and circling suddenly had somewhere to land. They poured out into that little rectangle container like they’d just been waiting for it.

Within minutes we had clarity, direction, and momentum.

The scorecard we were figuring out matters far less than the cascade of lessons that started with that little rectangle. Because for the next couple days, containers like it kept showing up for me in all sorts of other places.

Like later that day, I heard James Clear (author of Atomic Habits) on a podcast say something that made me rewind and play it back twice:

“One of the first questions I ask is, how do I want to spend my days? And so then you draw a box, and inside that box, how can we make the most money, reach the most people, make the biggest impact, make the contribution that you want to make, but not outside of it. And what happens a lot of the time is people do that in reverse. They start by asking, how can we make the most money or reach the most people or make the biggest impact? And then they decide, oh, well, this is what I want to do. But it’s actually outside of how they want to spend their days…”

Not “figure out what you want to achieve and work backward.” Not “set the goal and reverse-engineer the path.” Start with the container you actually want. Then fill it.

For just a brief moment, I felt a sense of relief. An intuitive tug that this might be the container I’d been looking for, not for the scorecard problem, but for a quieter, deeper one I’d been circling around on for months: how to find purpose in the present if the future is no longer pulling me forward into it.

How I Found Direction

For most of my life, I’ve oriented toward some future big goal. I’d plant some flag out there, stretch a rubber band out from where I am, climb inside, and let the tension pull me forward. And it worked. That tension built a lot of things and a life that I am very proud of.

But there is a shadow side: the future never actually arrives in the way I envisioned. One of a few things typically happens:

By the time I actually achieve that big goal the rubber band was anchored to, it has pulled and dragged me through so many challenges and adversities, through so many boulders and valleys…with the bumps, bruises, and exhaustion that came on the way there, there’s more relief it is over than celebration it was accomplished.

…or the dead ends, detours, and adaptations arrive at a directionally accurate, but such a starkly different looking destination, it actually feels more like a failure than a success.

…or upon arrival, the clouds didn’t part and the angels didn’t sing. What I thought would be a life-changing accomplishment turns out to be just another Tuesday that is blurred, blended, and acclimated into another week of another month. That deflating feeling of whether it was actually even worth the effort at all. 

And along the way, there’s the ever-present tension from that rubber band, like a firm hand on my back constantly urging me forward. With that steady forward pressure, intentional effort and energy is required to find peace or rest in any given moment. That constant tension formed cracks and fissures in my health, relationships, and happiness. I was showing up depleted for the people who needed me most…including myself. 

I am entering a different season now. I still look to the horizon, but it doesn’t grip me the way it once did. And without that consistent pull into the future, I started feeling lost, unanchored, and uninspired. 

What I didn’t expect was that quieter challenge: 

How do I find purpose in the present when it’s no longer anchored to the future?

When my days aren’t in service of some distant destination, what makes them meaningful? When the rubber band goes slack, where does direction come from?

As I’ve been sitting with that question for a few months now, these containers showing up in my life are starting to feel like they may hold some potential answers…or at least better questions. 

A Different Shape for the Same Energy

The one flag pegged at the horizon was like dredging a river toward the future. Keep pushing, keep carving, keep forcing direction. Stop and it dries up.

But what if I took that same rubber band and added a few more pegs? Out wide of that future anchor and where I am currently standing. Suddenly the rubber band isn’t pulling me anywhere. It’s providing shape. A container. Something I exist within rather than get dragged along by.

From tension to capacity. 

From pulling to holding.

From dredging a river to filling a lake. 

It doesn’t chase the horizon. It receives. It fills. And when it’s full, it overflows into the river; not because it’s trying to get somewhere, but because that’s what fullness does, it flows and provides. 

An Old Word, A New Meaning

This is where an old word hit me in a new way: Fulfillment.

I’ve always seen it as an achievement. Something you reach. A destination where you finally feel complete.

But what if fulfillment is actually more about filling? Not arriving somewhere, but inhabiting where you already are.

Fill the day. Let those full days overflow into the week. Let the weeks fill the months…the year, the seasons, the life. 

Meaning doesn’t have to be pulled from the future. It can accumulate from each day lived well. Not just backwards from some distant purpose, but from days that are actually lived in alignment with the best version of yourself.

When I’m fulfilled, when my lake is full, I notice I have more to give. Not from obligation or effort, but from overflow and abundance. And I’m starting to believe that’s true for all of us. 

When we are fulfilled, when our lakes are full, we can sustainably give so much more to everyone around us without drying up and burning out. This overflow of presence, energy, and care is what so many people are in desperate need of. Not another achievement from us. Just someone who isn’t running on empty.

I’m still figuring out how to do this. I’m still learning how to let each day be sufficient without needing to justify it, still catching myself reaching for the old rubber band.

The old wiring is strong: it equates slack with laziness, contentment with complacency, rest with risk. My nervous system learned that tension was necessary for direction.

But I’m starting to trust that direction can come from somewhere else. 

Not from pressure, but from coherence. 

Not from urgency, but from repeated attraction to what keeps returning without frictionful effort.

Something to Fill

So I’m curious: what container might already be in front of you, waiting to be noticed?

Maybe it’s a rectangle on someone’s notebook. 

Maybe it’s the shape of your Tuesday. 

Maybe it’s a question you’ve been circling that just needs somewhere to land.

You might not need to push harder or think smarter. 

You might just need something to fill. 

And in the filling, you might find that purpose was never out there waiting to be reached. It was here the whole time, waiting to be lived.

Lead With Energy, 

Derek