If your life lacks purpose, you need to find your quest

Do you ever find yourself pondering the meaning of life and bemoaning your own lack of purpose? If so, you need a quest!

Having a personal journey can give your life a sense of purpose, especially if your quest is directed toward a greater cause.

This was Stephanie Zito’s experience. After working in nonprofits for 15 years, Zito was disillusioned by the wasteful bureaucracy she’d witnessed. So she set up a project called #Give10. She committed to donating $10 a day to a cause of her choosing, as well as an extra $600 three times a year to charities other people recommended.

Her quest wasn’t only about giving, but also about discovery. It enabled her to discover many inspiring smaller charities, like a project called Liter of Light, which created cheap lighting using plastic bottles, or another that was initiated by a five-year-old boy who sold paintings online to raise money for medical research.

There’s another aspect of quests that can be edifying: Failure. This might seem counterintuitive, but failure can actually support our efforts, because it gives us information about whether we’re on the right path.

For example, Mark Boyle wanted to walk to India, but lost his motivation early on after encountering language problems on the French coast. He returned to England disheartened, and couldn’t stop mulling over this embarrassing failure. But after a good deal of contemplation, he realized his worries derived from the fact that he’d pursued the wrong quest.

He hadn’t, as it turned out, really wanted to walk to India. Rather, his true dream was to live a life without money. So instead of traveling to India, he embarked on a new quest. He spent a year surviving without money, by bartering and working for shelter and sustenance.

Today, he guides others who want to follow a similar path with his annual Freeconomy Festival. For Boyle, going on a quest – and failing at it – was just a stage on the path to a sense of purpose.