Driving on Purpose

“The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.”
– Will Rogers

Dear Reader,

I’ve been sitting with a big question lately.

Are we destined for something in life? Is there a path that’s ours to walk, or do we simply have free will, and make it all up as we go?

It’s one of the oldest tensions there is, and I don’t pretend to have it fully solved. But here’s where I’ve landed, at least for now.

I believe there may be a direction that’s genuinely yours. Call it purpose, calling, or destiny, a sense of what you’re here to do, or who you’re capable of becoming. Where your natural abilities, talents, and strengths lead you. This sense has been a constant feeling in my own life.

But here’s the part we tend to miss: having a purpose and living it are two very different things.

A direction being available to you doesn’t mean you’ll walk it. Because along the way, you get to choose, every single day, what you do.

That’s where free will comes in. While the road may be laid out in front of you, it’s full of tempting places to stop. To settle. To decide it’s too hard, or too uncertain, or taken too long.

Nothing forces you forward. The choice is always yours.

And here’s what I’ve noticed. When you do keep choosing with intention, when your actions line up with the direction that’s truly yours, life starts to feel different. Things begin to flow. Opportunities appear that you couldn’t have planned, and that doesn’t mean it’s a straight line either. There may be detours and unexpected events along the way, and when you trust those twists and continue moving, it’s like the path starts to meet you halfway.

And perhaps, through these detours, you discover deeper levels of yourself, reconnecting with who you really are, and a purpose rises up that shifts the direction of your life. The detours, the struggles, the continued movement: they’re what unlock it in you.

Yet opportunities like these rarely wait. They show up as a moment, a sign, an opening, a chance and they ask you to recognize it and move before it passes. That’s the choice, most of the time. Not some grand, once-in-a-lifetime crossroads, but the small openings, right in front of you, that you either seize or let drift by. Because the flow only carries you while you’re moving. The moment you pull into one of those tempting parking spaces, the momentum quietly fades.

Which means the real question isn’t whether you have a purpose. It’s whether you’re still driving toward it or whether you’ve quietly parked.

My question for you this week:

Are the choices you’re making actually leading you where you want to go?

Sit with that.

– Ken