What will you give your one life to?

A powerful truth that deserves careful attention

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

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Often, when we start thinking about our “purpose,” it can all feel a bit abstract or overwhelming. But perhaps a better way to approach it is this:

What would be worth dedicating your one life to?

I know it sounds earnest—but when you really sit with it, it’s a powerful truth, and one that deserves careful attention.

What would feel truly worthwhile—something that makes you feel alive, something you’d be proud to devote your time and energy to?

When you focus on that, it’s amazing what you can accomplish—the influence you can have, in your own way, using your unique gifts and talents.

There are so many things we could be doing with our time here. Many of them look “successful” on the outside, but they don’t mean all that much deep down.

Even if you’re doing well in your career, even if you’re ambitious or have learned to tie your self-worth to achievements, you might still feel that tug—that quiet sense of emptiness whispering:

This isn’t it.

Often, that intuition is a signal.

A reminder that you’re not doing what you’re truly meant to be doing.

Because real purpose doesn’t drain you—it lights you up. It gives you energy, momentum, and a sense of meaning that no external accolade or achievement ever could.

A few years ago, I found myself asking this very question.

What do I want to give my life to? What would feel deeply fulfilling? What would I regret not trying if I got to the end and realised I had played it safe?

It was out of that reflection that Intentional View in its infancy was born.

I feel grateful that I took the leap—leaving a retail career that had nothing to offer me on a soul level—and choosing to use my voice to explore the things I was awakening to in my own life. This space has given me the freedom to write about what inspires me, what excites me, and what matters to my heart.

Part of that awakening has been noticing how our everyday choices shape not only our own lives but the world around us.

Choosing veganism, for example, began as a personal health choice—but quickly became a gateway into understanding animal rights and challenging systems of harm and exploitation.

And examining my relationship with consumerism versus minimalism revealed how much of what I thought I “needed” was shaped by marketing, habit, or societal pressure, rather than by my true values.

Even deeper, reflecting on the beliefs we’ve inherited—those unexamined narratives that dictate what success, happiness, or “normal” looks like—can be transformative.

These narratives often keep us small, living lives we never consciously designed, tied into cycles that harm not only our own mental health but also the wellbeing of others and the planet.

By questioning these patterns, we begin to see the ways our choices—both big and small—connect to wider systems of power and oppression.

And by doing so, we reclaim agency over our lives: uncovering limiting beliefs, making conscious decisions, and finding ways to live that are aligned with our values. It’s a process of growth, courage, and honest reflection—and it’s what this platform has been about from the very beginning.

Yet even in my own creative work, I’ve noticed how easy it is to drift from purpose into comfort.

Over the past year, I’ve spent a lot of time refining this space—reworking the design, adjusting the tone, questioning what kind of content I should share.

Somewhere in that process, I started to wonder whether people still have the patience for long, reflective writing. Maybe I should keep things shorter, lighter, easier to digest.

And in doing that, I found myself stepping back from the topics that first lit something in me—veganism, sustainability, ethics. The ones that ask harder questions, that invite discomfort or disagreement. Sometimes those pieces take more out of me to write. They’re vulnerable in a different way, because they challenge not only others, but me too.

But the truth is, those are the conversations that feel most meaningful to me.

They’re the ones that connect most deeply to what I want to give my life to.

Because if I only ever write what’s safe or palatable, then I’m not really living this message I keep returning to—that our time is too short not to dedicate it to what matters.

So I’m learning to keep choosing the work that feels true, even when it’s harder to write. To trust that the right people will meet me there—that you’ll be willing to sit in that discomfort alongside me. Because that’s part of what living with intention looks like too.

And this is where I also want to turn the question back to you.

What would it mean for you to dedicate your life to what truly matters?

What would you regret not doing if you reached the end and realised you had never faced discomfort in pursuit of something you truly cared about?

It’s not always easy to sit with these questions honestly—your ego will try to give you safe answers, socially acceptable answers.

But underneath that noise is a deeper truth.

I encourage you to give yourself the time and space to listen for it.

Sit with the discomfort if it comes.

Let yourself feel the resistance, the fear, and the uncertainty.

And when clarity arrives, be brave enough to follow it.

We often live as if we have a never-ending amount of time. We postpone, we wait, assuming there will always be more days to do what matters. But our lives are fleeting, whether we acknowledge it or not.

There’s a Latin phrase, memento mori—“remember death.” It’s not meant to be morbid, but grounding. A reminder that our time is short.

Remembering death isn’t about fear; it’s about perspective.

It’s what brings our attention back to what truly matters—and why the choices we make with our one life deserve care, courage, and heart.

Because if you only get one life, the most meaningful thing you can do is to listen to that quiet tug in your heart, to step into discomfort when it leads to growth, and to dedicate yourself to what makes your life—and the lives of others—richer, fuller, and more meaningful.