Find Your Drop: A Roadmap to Purpose

Our purpose is located at the intersection of our talents, passions, and an opportunity to make an impact.

It's easy to say, "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" or "Go find your purpose," but how do we actually do it? How do we navigate towards our purpose while dealing with the responsibilities and pressure from our everyday life? I see this journey as a road trip. Most people have a love-hate relationship with road trips. On one hand, driving is one of the slowest ways to travel and you have to do all of the work. Things like trip planning and packing always seem to take longer than expected. Add a couple of toddlers in the back seat and that might be nightmare fuel for some of you.

The journey to finding our purpose won't always go as planned so be on the lookout for wrong turns and dead ends.

Sometimes you'll even have to reroute, but that's okay. Let's get this show on the road. First and foremost, you'll need your driver's license. Without one, we're stuck in park.

Without life's most basic needs, we're stuck in park.

Our driver's license represents life's most basic needs, which can be defined as food, shelter, and water. For the sake of our journey, let's take a closer look at the water crisis. Over 703 million people around the world live without clean water. When you don't have access to clean water, you don't have a choice but to seek it out, even if it's dirty. Women and children bear this responsibility for their families. They pick up their buckets and walk back and forth, collecting water until they have enough to cook, clean, drink, and bathe. Every minute that a child is walking to collect water is a minute that they could have been in school. This is why water is the foundation of every community and it's impossible to break the cycle of poverty without it. Water changes everything. Most importantly, it empowers locals and puts them on a level playing field, which ultimately gives them the opportunity to pursue their dreams and find their purpose.

Seeking out your purpose requires you to become aware of different issues and injustices that exist today.

This learning happens through our daily interactions with the world. This education starts in the home, starts through the values and morals instilled in us by our families and continues on in the classroom as we learn from our teachers, friends, and mentors. I'm sure we can all think about someone from our past who has significantly impacted who we have become. Other times it happens when you least expect it. Maybe you saw a documentary that opened your eyes or maybe someone you care about is forced to battle a disease and it inspires you to take action. The bottom line is that we can't care about something if we don't know it exists. As you begin your journey, make sure to keep your eyes, ears, and heart open to opportunities for learning.

Once your engine is warm, it's time to press the accelerator.

When you learn about a cause that stirs up your curiosity, the next step is to take action. But what does that mean? Where do we even begin? You start in the service of others. Begin by researching organizations addressing your particular cause and when you find one that speaks to you, reach out and ask them how you can get involved. You can use your unique talents to serve or you can build new skills and jump into action. No act of service is too big or too small if it comes from a place of love. There are an infinite number of ways to serve. Consider what you have to offer whether it be your time, talents, or treasure and if at any point you come to the realization that this may not be getting you closer to your drop, hop back on the road and move on to your next destination.

When you get to know the stakeholders, learn about the solutions, and immerse yourself into action, that's like getting on the express lane.

Pressing the accelerator helps you realize the power that you have to make an impact and that inspires you to keep going. I was 16 years old when I first pressed that accelerator. That's when I participated on my first water project in the community of La Saina in the Dominican Republic. I only went because I needed the service hours for school and I figured that this would be a cool topic for my college applications, but despite going for all of the wrong reasons, the experience impacted me in all of the right ways. It stayed on my mind when I got back home. I couldn't unsee what I saw. How could people be living this way? And when I look back at this experience now, it's easy to identify it as a key inflection point on the journey to my drop.

Reflection is the fuel that allows us to pause and think about what we've learned, how we've made an impact, and how that makes us feel.

Stopping to fill up your tank is also a great opportunity to pull out your GPS and see if there's a more efficient route to your destination. This exercise of zooming out and looking at the big picture is a critical step on the journey to find your drop. This is most effective after encountering an inflection point, but your gas light can turn on at any time. And like your gas light, your heart will tell you when it's time to reflect. For some, this could happen when you're thinking about what you should major in in college, while for others it might manifest itself through an idea or a repetitive thought that you can't shake. The key is to practice identifying these moments as they show up in your