A Purposeful Life Worth Living

Look outside yourself to add meaning and years to your life

There is much written about the importance of living a purposeful life, especially as it relates to longevity. Indeed, living with meaning is a common thread with many people who enjoy long healthspans. Although I’ve been wanting to write about this topic for quite a while, for some reason other topics kept pushing it down the list… but the other day we received sad news of a true wonder woman we had the honor of knowing and so this topic sprang to the top of the heap.

I’ve been ruminating on this for a while. How am I living a purposeful life? What is my true purpose? Granted, I have a great purpose as a wife and mother, which motivates me to be the best person I can be and keep our family train chugging along. Taking care of my mother for 13 years was a purpose that filled my waking thoughts. I have a sense of duty and responsibility to our clients, which is definitely a meaning of sorts. But as time marches on and our son takes flight and we evolve into a different phase of life and work, where will my purpose be? And will it be a genuinely worthwhile purpose?

Evidence of purpose
This is not an inconsequential question. There is a growing body of anecdotal and clinically researched evidence that supports the notion that life meaning adds to your life expectancy.

According to a Blue Zones article, “NEWS: Huge Study Confirms Purpose and Meaning Adds Years to Life,” in the blue zone regions purpose has long been associated with extreme longevity. It is thought to act as a buffer against stress, which reduces overall inflammation thus reducing the chances of suffering from a myriad of “old age” diseases such as Alzheimer’s, arthritis, and strokes. Two studies bear this out:

Dr. Robert Butler, the first director of the National Institute on Aging, estimated that the ability to define your life meaning adds to your life expectancy. His 2014 NIH-funded study looked at the correlation between having a sense of purpose and longevity and found that individuals who expressed a clear goal in life—something to get up for in the morning, something that made a difference—lived longer and were sharper than those who did not.

A more recent study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association has linked a strong sense of purpose with a lower risk of all-cause mortality after age 50. The study followed about 7,000 adults over the age of 50. The participants were interviewed using a questionnaire to rank their life purpose. Researchers assigned life-purpose scores based on participants’ responses and followed up with them five years later. They found that participants who had the lowest life-purpose scores were twice as likely to have died than those with the highest scores.

A prodigious purpose
We met Gwen Rich (ironically) 5 years ago this month. At that time, she was close to a decade into the battle of her life. After eight years of incomprehensible medical missteps and eight erroneous diagnoses, the last and correct diagnosis dealt her a blow that would have stopped most people in their tracks: she had an incurable form of breast cancer that had spread to her bones and she was dying. Good Lord!

But Gwen did not sit down and give up. Instead, her first thought was (unbelievably) “Thank God! Now I know what’s wrong with me and I can start living again.” And so she did. She threw herself headlong into the fight of her life and through her persistent journey became an even more remarkable person. A combination of mindset, extraordinarily disciplined health protocols, and faith were the underpinnings of her survival.

It became her mission—her purpose—to systematize her journey of recovery and inspire others to be proactive about their own health issues. She wrote a book to encourage people to “live a legacy on the go,” established the website The Rich Solution as a resource to provide tools to empower others, developed supplements she believed in, delivered a weekly podcast about all things nutrition and health, and essentially helped restore people’s lives through her community.

I vividly remember sitting across from Gwen in our conference room, transfixed by her unfathomable story and impressed by her sheer will and discipline. (My friends think I’m disciplined, this woman had me beat by a mile!) Although she lived in the Midwest, and we were on the west coast, she brought a tote of foods and supplements in order to adhere to the strict regime she had developed. By all outward appearances, she was a vibrant, healthy mom of four grown, thriving children who spoke about her journey with optimism and gratitude.

Timing is everything
Meeting her was a formative moment for me. Here, Gwen had gone through a brutal decade and came out the other side a new woman, inspired to help others to transform their own lives. She ran marathons; took painstaking measures to eat a squeaky clean, whole-food diet; worked tirelessly in her business; took great care in her appearance; and was a dedicated wife and mother. All with the knowledge that she wasn’t truly out of the woods… there was still a ticking time bomb buried in her body. I honestly couldn’t fathom where she found the strength, let alone the energy and stamina. I ruefully looked at my life and thought I had little to complain about.

Her example reinforced in my mind the critical role of nutrition, exercise, mindset, faith, and community in living well—no matter the circumstances. I rededicated myself to my own health habits, inspired to delve deeper, learn more about all things wellness, and put them into practice. Ultimately, though, I started contemplating living life with purpose, not just slogging through the days. I was inspired to keep my dream of Ageosophy alive, which was covered in cobwebs, languishing on the proverbial shelf.

True purpose of life
Andrea and I are blessed to live in a small town brimming with magnificent mature trees—from oaks, sycamores, and eucalyptus to camphor, jacaranda, and the Moreton Bay fig—planted well over a century ago. We are so grateful to those who had the foresight to plant all these now elder trees that have become integral to the fabric of our lives. I often reflect on them as Andrea and I believe the true purpose of life is to create something that far outlasts us, just like Gwen did.

Purpose is outside ourselves. It’s bigger than we are. It touches the life of someone else. Perhaps most poignantly exemplified in Viktor Frankl’s seminal heart-wrenching book, Man’s Search For Meaning, chronicling his imprisonment in a Nazi Germany concentration camp and working in the camp hospital. His observational thesis was prisoners who had a greater purpose than themselves—that pulled them forward even through unspeakable conditions—survived. Those with no purpose lost their courage and hope, weakening their power of resistance and ability to survive.

All of us have the potential to live a life of profound consequence and impact, as did Viktor Frankl or the indomitable Gwen Rich—who passed away last Thursday, July 27, 2023. Each of us can purposefully leave indelible footprints in the minds and hearts of the people we encounter. The size of the imprint isn’t as important as the fact that it is a positive impression on another life. Thank you, Gwen, for living your purpose, which in turn inspired and motivated me to live mine.

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Do you need inspiration to live with purpose? You may enjoy these articles from the Blue Zones site:
Richard Leider Explains How to Find Your Purpose
The Power of Purpose: 9 Questions for Richard Leider