Man, I gotta tell you, a few years back, I felt like I was just spinning my tires. You know that feeling? You’re working hard, you’re ticking off the boxes society tells you to tick off, but deep down, nothing clicks. Everything felt heavy. Like wearing clothes three sizes too small. That’s why I finally decided I needed to figure out what my actual deal was—what my ‘arcana’ was, or whatever the fancy spiritual folks call it. I just wanted to know what I was actually supposed to be doing here.
I didn’t start with meditation retreats or anything expensive like that. I started by getting pissed off. I looked around at my peers and watched how easily some of them just knew where they were going. They had this internal compass I was totally missing. So I decided I was going to find my own compass, even if I had to tear my life apart to do it.
The Messy Start: Throwing Spaghetti at the Wall
First, I did what everyone does: I dove into personality tests. I took all the major ones. I spent way too much time debating whether I was an ENFJ or an INTJ. I read the results, felt smart for a minute, and then realized they didn’t actually tell me what to do. They just described my current, confused state. Useless.
Then I tried the career coaches. That was worse. They kept trying to fit me into jobs that paid well but made me feel like I was selling my soul. They pushed me towards things based on my past resume, not my future potential. I wasted nearly a grand on sessions that only left me more annoyed.
The thing that really made me snap was a random Tuesday afternoon. I was stuck in traffic, late for a meeting I didn’t care about, and I just screamed in my car. Right then, I decided: Forget the experts. Forget the tests. I had to look inward, using nothing but simple paper and a pen. I wanted to simplify everything.
The Simple Method I Started Implementing
I knew the ‘arcana’ concept was about big, foundational energy. Like the core card in a Tarot deck that defines you. I didn’t know how to pull a card for myself, so I invented a simple process to essentially pull my own internal data.
I started by finding a quiet spot and physically writing down three lists. These are the steps I drilled into myself:
- List 1: The Burn List (What I Must Stop Doing) I wrote down everything that drained my energy and made me feel fake. Not just jobs, but specific actions, relationships, and even hobbies. I marked the things I could eliminate in 90 days.
- List 2: The Obsession List (Where My Energy Naturally Goes) This was crucial. I tracked what I read about when nobody was paying me. What did I argue about? What problems did I constantly try to fix for friends or family, even when I wasn’t asked? I looked for recurring themes, things I couldn’t help but learn about.
- List 3: The Five-Year-Old Test (What I Loved Before the World Interfered) I forced myself to remember what I loved doing when I was about five or six years old, before money, status, or parents’ expectations got in the way. Did I love building things? Telling stories? Organizing chaos? That core childlike motivation is pure, unfiltered energy.
I spent about two weeks just cross-referencing these lists. I kept seeing patterns. For me, the Obsession List always came back to teaching complex ideas simply, and the Five-Year-Old Test showed I always loved building simple systems. My Burn List was full of things that required intense, long-term, specialized labor that never had a clear outcome.
Unlocking the True Purpose: The Click Moment
The realization didn’t come in a flash of light. It came slowly, like a grinding gear finally engaging. I realized my ‘arcana’ wasn’t about being a specific professional title; it was about the energy of teaching, simplifying, and connecting disparate ideas. I was the ‘Translator’ or ‘The Bridge Builder.’
Once I identified that core energy—my arcana—my purpose snapped into focus. My purpose wasn’t to earn X amount of money or achieve Y promotion. My true purpose was to apply that Translator energy to help others avoid the same time-wasting, complicated searches I went through.
I started applying this immediately. I drew clear boundaries based on the Burn List. I reshaped my job applications to focus solely on roles where I could simplify complex data. I stopped chasing external validation and started validating myself based on whether I was using my Translator energy that day. It sounds simple, but trust me, it’s revolutionary when you actually do it.
The change wasn’t instant wealth or sudden fame. The real change was the weight lifting. I felt integrated. I knew why I was making choices. Even mundane things, like choosing which book to read or which project to take on, suddenly had a point. I had stopped fighting myself and started directing the energy I already possessed. That’s the real secret to unlocking your purpose—it’s not finding something new; it’s recognizing what’s already burning inside you and clearing the crap away so it can shine.
