In his book 'Good Leaders Ask Great Questions', John C Maxwell said "purpose gives you drive".

That got me thinking. Does purpose give you drive or does drive give you purpose?  I think, at the surface level, John C Maxwell is correct - purpose does give you drive. At least, purpose bolsters your drive and purpose fans your flames of motivation...so to speak.

That said - Where does purpose come from? Does it magically or genetically appear when we are born? Are people destined with a built-in purpose, coupled to a major life-task...i.e., working to understand that purpose? And, does the extent people are able to figure out their life purposes correlate to their ability to generate internal drive?...i.e., the more they know their purpose, the stronger their internal drive.

Is that the way it works?

Or, are people born with a curious internal drive and that drive naturally causes them to do things and when they do things they achieve results. Then, when they observe those results and particularly those results that provide them gratification, people get a sense of purpose – a sense of purpose that aligns with their gratifying results. And, if they find the gratification compelling enough then they consider it to be aligned with 'internal purpose'. Then, with this sequence of thoughts and actions repeated and repeated over time, people conclude - “This is my purpose!”

Is that the way it works?

This conundrum goes to the heart of the very big question: Was each person created with a specific purpose? The alternative being that we were not created with specific purposes and if that is the case then a logical next question is - Are we supposed to create our own purpose?

Regardless...

Don't you think we the ‘captains of our own ships’, able to [if not designed to] determine where our ships are going?