A Reason to Get Up in the Morning
When researchers began looking at the world's Blue Zones, one of the patterns they noticed had nothing to do with food or exercise. People in these communities often maintained something equally important as they grew older: a sense of purpose.
In Okinawa, there is a word for it: ikigai. In Nicoya, Costa Rica, it's plan de vida. The words and cultures are different, but the idea is similar—a reason to get up in the morning.
Purpose doesn't have to mean a career, an impressive accomplishment, or some enormous mission we're supposed to discover. It can be much quieter than that. Caring for grandchildren. Tending a garden. Cooking for the people you love. Volunteering. Caring for animals. Being the person someone knows they can call.
We've been fortunate to see a beautiful example of this in Mussomeli.
Our friends at The Good Kitchen have created something that goes far beyond preparing food. People give their time, cook together, rescue food that might otherwise be wasted, and prepare meals for members of the community who need them. Food becomes a way to care for people and, in the process, people become connected to one another.
This year marks The Good Kitchen's fifth anniversary, and it mattered enough to Dale that he returned to Sicily early so he could be there to celebrate it with them.
I love what that says about purpose.
Sometimes purpose isn't something we accomplish. It's something we show up for.
It is being part of a community. Having people who count on you and people you can count on. Giving your time because something matters to you. Knowing that your presence, however small it may seem, contributes to something larger than yourself.
We so often connect our sense of usefulness to work. We spend decades answering the question, What do you do? as though our occupation explains who we are. But children grow up. Careers change. We retire. Our roles shift. Our need to feel that we matter doesn't disappear simply because a particular chapter does.
Perhaps purpose isn't something we find once and carry unchanged for the rest of our lives. Maybe it changes with us.
There may be seasons when our purpose is raising a family. Seasons when we're building something. Seasons when we're caring for someone else, learning something new, tending a piece of land, or simply showing up for the people around us.
And perhaps we don't always recognize these things as purpose because they look so ordinary.
But the Blue Zones remind us that ordinary life is exactly where so many of these lessons seem to live.
Purpose doesn't have to change the world. It simply has to give meaning to yours.
And sometimes, finding that meaning begins by pulling up a chair, lending a hand, and becoming part of something that matters.
With gratitude,
Jenn
