One life, one vision, one purpose, laser focus. The ultimate goal of our life is to find out our one true purpose at the earliest, and work towards that with relentless focus, be the absolute best at it, and that is how you reach the pinnacle of success. And if you haven’t found out what that one thing is for you, then you are wasting your life on meaningless distractions which only makes you stray more and more away from the path of success.

Well.. those ideas are not mine, but are ideas indoctrinated by the popular culture and mainstream media. A culture that frequently highlights the achievements of child prodigies who identified their talents and found a purpose early on in their lives, honed their skills for years together and then went on to become stalwarts in their respective domains. Tiger Woods started playing golf at the age of two, and never looked back. His father realized that golf was his destiny, got him the best coaching possible starting at that tender age. With years and years of focused practice, Tiger became the best golfer the world had ever seen. Legendary music composer Mozart started playing the piano at the age of four and had already started composing music at the age of five. Examples like these are supposed to motivate you, but somehow for me they almost always had the opposite effect. I used to look back at my own life and think – at the age of two I needed mom to stop me from eating mud, at the age of five I could hardly tie my own shoelaces, let alone knowing what my talent or purpose was. Forget then, even now, at the age of thirty I have no clarity on what my true purpose is – what is that one thing that I should truly dedicate my life towards to reach the epitome of success or something that my life would become synonymous with.

When the popular media throws examples like these every now and then, you can’t help but feel demotivated for the fact that you still haven’t figured out what is your true calling in life – the one thing you are destined to do. There is this culture that constantly keeps reminding us that in the highly competitive world we need to become more and more specialized in any one aspect (which probably would then define your purpose) and if we don’t figure what to specialize in early on then we are left behind and cannot compete with the ones that have gotten an early head start.

But in reality, not all of us have the luxury of knowing what our true calling is for a long time. But more importantly, it’s not completely necessary that you have to find it early on. Your life experiences eventually will bring that clarity to you, no matter how diverse those experiences are.

Let’s take the story of a man from Netherlands – as a child he used to be below par when it came to making art, and it never really inspired him. In his late teens he became an art dealer who was initially happy in the job of selling other people’s art. His success was short lived, and he was dismissed from the dealership a few years later. He then went to London and worked as a teacher, but not for long. With his newfound interest in religion he tried to become a pastor, but he wasn’t good enough in his studies to become one. He then had a brief stint as a bookstore clerk. Later he took up religious teaching, but he could not make an impact with people and failed at that as well. Having tried various career paths, initially showing promise and miserably failing later in everything, he was desperate to find his true calling. He gave one last shot and attempted to learn art himself. But he struggled to keep up with the formal rules of art, and his paintings were deemed unworthy by his art dealer ex-boss, who even said “you’re starting art too late in life, you can never become a true artist”. One day, in his early thirties, frustrated by all this, he went to a sand dune in the storm and started a painting there, flouting all formal rules of the classic art styles and creating something original out of his mind’s eye – that is the moment when he realized his passion for painting and that he doesn’t need to conform to the set rules of art. He soon came up with his own new style of painting, and in the last few remaining years of his short life, he launched a new era of art that inspired generations to come. This man was none other than Vincent Van Gogh – one of the most influential painters the world has ever seen.

Moreover, age is no true indication of when you would create your life-defining work – JK Rowling published the first Harry Potter book in her 30s when she was at the rock bottom of her personal life, Soichiro Honda founded Honda motors when he was in his 40s, Ray Croc founded McDonalds when he was in his 50s, Harlan Sanders founded KFC when he was in his 60s, and acclaimed American folk artist Grandma Moses started to paint in her 70s!

So never let the popular culture convince you that you are late in what you’re destined to achieve just because some others started earlier than you or had more clarity than you. If anything, then these examples of the late bloomers are to remind you that “no, you’re not behind”. At the end of the day, finding your purpose is more often a journey in itself, and not necessarily an event that’s a prerequisite for your life’s journey.

I conclude this with a quote from Steve Jobs who said – “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots somehow will connect in your future. “