“GO FIND YOUR PURPOSE...”

This is an often quoted phrase that is told to young people as you grow up: “Go find your purpose,” as if it is a pot of gold at the end of the yellow brick road yet to be discovered. As if, if you just try hard enough or search long enough you will stumble onto your purpose. But social science research and lived experience of “purpose exemplars” demonstrate that finding one’s purpose is neither a linear path, nor a simple equation.

In real life, seeking out a sense of purpose starts in small bite-sized chunks and is project based not destination based. It has to start with a desire to find a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in one’s life. But even with the right motivation it is not always clear how to go on the path towards exploring one’s sense of purpose.

In this class, we will explore the social science of purpose development and use a curriculum called the Wayfinder Navigation Toolkit that has been designed in order to help students embark on a path of purpose. Developed at the Stanford Design School and now an independent curriculum, Project Wayfinder’s Navigation Toolkit is a 32-piece curriculum that helps facilitate students on their own journey of purpose. During the course of the semester, the class will cover 16 of the 32 parts of the Wayfinder curriculum both in class and as part of take home work.

The class will be structured to meet for 2-hour periods. Each section will roughly be divided in half between completing a Wayfinder curriculum piece and discussing the week’s readings and the activity completed in the first part of class. The readings for class will draw from the latest research on purpose development in adolescence, journal articles covering the topic of living a meaningful life, and the studies of wayfinding cultures that use physical navigation to find their way in the world to make this not just a metaphor, but a real-lived experience of wayfinding.

A large part of the class will be experiential and there will be class outings to local parks in the East Bay for some sections and guided meditation and active journaling at home. Students who choose to take this class should be interested in diving into their own sense of purpose and want to examine what kind of life they want to live.