Uncover the happiness hidden in the micro-purpose(s)

TEDx Singapore “Happiness” 2021 Panelist

30th Aug, 2021

“Live is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” Viktor Frankl 

Growing up in Singapore, we believed that achieving the 5Cs achieving the 5Cs (Career, Cash, Car, Credit Card & Condominium) will guarantee our very own happy-ever-after. As such, when most talk about purpose, we always speak about it in grand terms – a grand mission to save the Earth, or altruistic acts of helping the needy.

On the flipside, if somebody were to say: “My purpose in life is just to do simple things and live like everyone else”, they would be judged for having ignoble and insignificant ideas that did not contribute to society. 

When I achieved the 5Cs in the height of my career, I was shocked to discover that I was not happy. It didn’t bring me the promise of forever happiness I was made to believe. In fact, I was burnt out, depressed and physically unwell. I started to question the purpose of life – my purpose in life. I was plagued by doubt, and struggled to find a new purpose, something that is larger and grander than being a CEO of a company with a few hundred employees, a purpose that would be both noble and altruistic. 

Did you think I ever found that? I was already burnt out from being a CEO, and even at that stage, I understood that I would not be any happier with even bigger responsibilities on my plate. But perhaps the bigger realization was that I did not believe in the standard Singaporean definition of “purpose”, nor did I know of any sort of alternative purpose that was personally meaningful to me. 

That was the impasse that I found myself at 8 years ago. I decided to throw myself into re-designing my life with a “Design Think To Happiness” approach that I had been using in my professional work for 20 years. I discovered that purpose exists not as the end goal, but in the journey. The life purposes I discovered were not grand, but it brought me immense joy. I call them “micro-purposes”, the mundane, seemingly small things we do that bring us fulfillment and a knowledge that we have value-added to another person – simply because we exist.

Sometimes, the quest for purpose can leaves us feeling more drained then happy. Therefore, I want to challenge the notion that 'living the big purpose' is the only thing that will bring us happiness, as well as the perception that life cannot be fulfilling unless we live for some grand mission. 

Purposes, no matter big or small, evolve throughout the stages of our life. There is hardly ever just one single big purpose that we live our whole lives for. We all juggle multiple roles and go from one responsibility to another every day. What hold us up from one role to another, are the strings of micro-purposes. As Zubir Said, the composer of “Majulah Singapura”, once said this to his grandson: “Wherever you are, uphold the sky above you”. I think that wonderfully sums up the simplicity of finding happiness and meaning through our micro-purposes.