The Purpose Equation

There’s a moment in life—sometimes small, sometimes impossible to ignore—when something shifts.

"I can’t go back to the way things were."

Maybe you’ve felt it before. Maybe you haven’t noticed it yet. Maybe it’s already happening in ways you can’t quite name.

For some, that shift in thought can be sudden—a loss, a realisation, an undeniable turning point. For others, it’s quieter, creeping in as an unsettled feeling beneath the surface. But no matter how it arrives, the outcome is the same: something in you moves forward, even if you don’t fully understand why.

That feeling—subtle or shattering—holds a question so personal to each of us: what now?

Everything in life moves through the same process.

Separation—You leave behind what you knew.

Threshold—You stand between the past and the unknown.

Integration—You return, changed.

This cycle repeats at every level of growth. A seed must break apart before it becomes a tree. A river carves itself into new landscapes over the threshold of time. Even the cells in your body replace themselves, constantly moving through renewal.

And us? We’re no different.

We leave behind old ways of thinking—not because we decide to, but because something inside us no longer fits. We enter the threshold, where everything feels uncertain, unsteady, uncomfortable. And then, through the experience, we integrate—we emerge with a new understanding, a new and more attuned sense of self.

It’s the measure of how we wrestle with life. It’s the space where we ask:

What matters to me?

What is real?

Where am I going?

And that refining process?

It’s an equation.

I didn’t invent it. but It was given to me by my teacher, passed down through generations for us to experience.

And it begins here:

At first, everything is for my sake—the first part of the equation.

Every experience is filtered through what it gives us, how it shapes us, how it serves our understanding of life. This isn’t wrong. It’s necessary. You explore, you test, you chase what feels meaningful—until, at some point, self alone stops being enough.

Because no matter how much you’ve gained, no matter how much understanding you’ve gathered, something still feels… incomplete.

And that’s when the second half of the equation begins.

Not for my sake.

The moment when purpose stops being about what you receive and starts being about what moves through you.

It’s a hard shift. Because conscious experience forces you to rearrange everything—the way you think, the way you measure value, the way you experience connection. What once felt like purpose—your goals, your motivations—no longer hold the same weight. They were stepping stones, necessary, but temporary.

And now, something else is forming. Something that isn’t about personal fulfilment but alignment with something greater.

and why?

This is where the equation of purpose turns into a tension of opposites. You still exist as an individual, but your actions are no longer just about you. You still have desires, but they are measured against how they serve the whole. A mother and father would be the natural example of care and concern, but this is deeper, this is extremely personal.

Because in purpose only you exist in that tension—and when that answer emerges.

You are the purpose, you are the reason in all things.

Your existence in that tension—between what was and what is becoming—that is the movement of your unique life itself.

The world operates in this exact pattern. Everything we see—matter, energy, life —exists because of opposites working together. Every force is met with its counterforce. Every movement is defined by resistance. Even the very atoms that make up our existence exist in a dynamic relationship between positive and negative charges.

Nothing is static.

Everything becomes.

And you are no different, if purpose is anything, it’s that: its you constantly becoming.

A conversation between what was, what is, and what is still unfolding.

But here’s where most people struggle.

We imagine a beautiful life as something that happens to us individually, something we can make for ourselves if we’re lucky.

But a beautiful life.

It is chosen from chaos.

It is nurtured through great efforts over time.

And a life of purpose is not something we can rationalise our way into. It must be felt. It is not a life of ease, but of intention—grown through the willingness to be uncomfortable for the sake of something worth it.

And that discomfort? It’s not a sign that you’re lost.

It’s a sign that you’re in it... in your purpose!

It will keep shifting you, pulling you into a space where you become aware of whats happening within you, the experience of self and its opposite.

The closer you come, the more you feel it—this quiet, persistent invitation to step beyond yourself, to hold both sides of the equation at once.

To experience life for your sake while learning to live not for your sake.

And the point—not to resolve the tension, but to exist within it. To feel the movement of life itself pressing through you, shaping you, revealing what’s next.

Not as an answer.

But as a call.

A call to keep moving. To keep seeing.

Because the moment you stop searching, the moment you stop listening—purpose doesn’t disappear.

It just waits.

Until you’re ready to come and see.

There is one final stage in the equation, as purpose is about bringing us 'somewhere. But as my teacher would say... you tell me what that is, its yours to discover.

But I will conclude with the invitation that moves me in purpose.

There’s a Desire which we come to name as Creator or in Hebrew:

Bo Reh—meaning, Come and See.

Not believe.

Not accept.

Not conclude.

It just invites us to Come and see.

To step into the process.

To be willing to walk the path of self.

why?

Because "I can’t go back to the way things were."

And that feeling—the one that returns again and again—isn’t a burden.

It’s your invitation.

It’s purpose calling you forward, showing up in the only way it knows how.

Not as an answer.

But as a question.

A question that won’t leave you.

Until you come and see.

Bradley J Cleary