When Life Reminds Us To Live With Purpose
What happens when the role you’ve played for so many years shifts and you don’t know what’s next?
What do you do when you have spent your life taking care of others, and now you suddenly have time for yourself—but no idea how to fill it?
How do you find meaning when you feel lost?
I’ve been sitting with these questions a lot lately, not just because they come up so often in my work, but because life has a way of forcing you to face them head-on.
This past week, my nephew passed away suddenly. A young life full of potential gone in an instant. And as I was trying to process the loss, the tragic news from Israel about the Bibas family shook me all over again. A mother and their babies murdered in cold blood. It’s impossible to hear something like that and not feel a deep shift inside of you. It’s impossible not to ask, what is the point of any of this?
For days, I sat with that question, feeling the weight of it in my chest. It’s so easy to go through life on autopilot, moving from one obligation to the next, taking care of what needs to get done, always telling yourself that one day you’ll slow down and figure things out. But then something happens, something so profound that it shakes you to the core and reminds you of how fragile life is, and you realize that the future is not guaranteed.
I hear it all the time from women who have spent their lives raising kids, running households, supporting their spouses, putting everyone else’s needs ahead of their own. Then suddenly, their kids are grown, their roles have shifted, and they’re left feeling untethered. They should be relieved to finally have time for themselves, but instead, they feel empty.
And I get it. Because I’ve been there, too.
I’ve spent years questioning whether I was doing enough, whether I was making a real difference, whether I was truly living with purpose—or just going through the motions. I’ve wrestled with the fear that maybe I was wasting time, that maybe I was playing small, that maybe I wasn’t doing all I was meant to.
And underneath it all was a fear: What will people think?
I’ve reinvented myself more times than I can count. I’ve been a therapist, an HR director, a mediator, a coach, and for a while, I even worked for a furniture company because I just wanted to do something lighthearted, something that had nothing to do with emotions. I wanted to be in a fun environment, to step away from the heaviness of helping people navigate their struggles. And for a while it felt good. It felt freeing. But eventually, I knew I wanted more. I knew I needed to do something with deeper meaning.
But every time I made a change, I felt the fear of judgment creeping in. Would people think I was unstable? That I couldn’t commit? That I was lost?
But what I’ve learned is that we are meant to evolve. We are not meant to stay in one place, repeating the same patterns forever, convincing ourselves that we should just be grateful and stop wanting more. Wanting more doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful for what you have. It means you recognize that life is not static. You are allowed to grow.
And yet, so many of us stay stuck because we think we need to have a perfect plan before we can move forward. We wait for clarity, confidence, some grand revelation that will tell us exactly what to do next. But that’s not how it works.
Purpose isn’t something that finds us. It’s something we create.
I used to think that one day I would just wake up and know exactly what I was meant to do. That if I just thought about it hard enough, clarity would appear. But that’s not how meaning is built. It’s not a lightbulb moment—it’s a series of small choices, made over and over again, until one day you look back and realize you’re exactly where you were meant to be.
It’s easy to feel lost when the role that defined you for so long has changed. It’s easy to convince yourself that you don’t know what’s next. But what if you stopped waiting for the answers to magically appear? What if instead of sitting in that discomfort, you started moving forward, even if you weren’t sure where it would lead? What if purpose wasn’t something you found but something you created through action?
I see it all the time—people waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect idea, the perfect plan. But the only way to move forward is to start. You don’t need to have all the answers today. You don’t need to know what the next five years will look like. You just need to take one step. Maybe that means picking up an old hobby you once loved, taking a class, or joining a group of people who inspire you. Maybe it means volunteering, or writing, or signing up for something that excites you, even if you don’t know why yet.
We spend so much time searching for our purpose, as if it’s some hidden treasure waiting to be discovered. But what if the purpose is simply found in the way we choose to live our lives? In the way we show up for others, in the way we push ourselves to grow, in the way we decide that our existence matters?
What if purpose isn’t something outside of us, waiting to be found, but something inside of us, waiting to be chosen?
This past week has reminded me that we don’t have time to waste. We don’t have time to sit on the sidelines of our own lives, waiting for the perfect moment to start. The time to live fully, to make a difference, to chase meaning is right now.
So, if you’ve been feeling lost, if you’re wondering what’s next, let this be your moment. Not to have all the answers, but to take one step forward. Because you are not done yet.
Your story isn’t over. In fact, maybe it’s just beginning.
If you have a question about life and career goals, a situation you’re struggling with, or a topic you want to explore, send it my way. Whether it’s about careers, relationships, personal growth, or navigating life changes later in life, I want to hear from you. Let’s talk about life, success, failure, reinvention, and everything in between. Because if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that we are never done evolving. n
Tamara Gestetner is a certified divorce mediator and psychotherapist located in Cedarhurst. She works with couples in need of mediation as well as couples in need of counseling. Tamara can be reached at tamaragestetner@gmail.com or 646-239-5686. For a free guide to dealing with the intricacies of divorce, please scan the attached QR code. To learn more about Tamara, please visit her website at www.tamaragestetner.com.