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Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life
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Some people receive the Call to Adventure, but others are left waiting by the phone.
Some will be lucky enough to quickly find a thing they can do. There are others who have to search a little bit more. The fellow who is Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life is searching for what he could be good at or what would spiritually satisfy him, and will try every possibility, even the most outlandish and odd. Obviously, with little or no success. If, for some reason, he succeeds in his new field, he will still feel empty, and will quickly abandon the effort at the first chance, going back to the pursuit of his "destiny."
Alternatively, the character indeed had found that satisfactory goal of life in the past, but life circumstances had irrevocably separated him from it. Broken-hearted, he tries with other things, often without success. In this case, he will abandon whatever he's doing if there is even a minimal chance of going back to the way it was.
If it's a musical, expect this to be expressed with an "I Want" Song or a Wanderlust Song.
This is what happens when those that Just Wanted To Be Special and would have Jumped at the Call never get the opportunity. They just never found their Goal in Life.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Hisashi Mitsui from Slam Dunk, who was a talented basketball player until a knee injury got him out of the courts. He eventually becomes a delinquent and gang leader out of pure grief; but when circumstances (and the messianic intervention of a certain professor) give him a second chance to came back, he willingly and gleefully abandons the thug lifestyle. Perhaps too willingly.
- Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho is a bit of darker example in that ultimately only fighting ever seems to bring happiness, but even that feels empty. He finally dies saving a kid and becomes a "Spirit Detective" but even then he still does not know.
- BlackWarGreymon spends most of his time in Digimon Adventure 02 running around and destroying things for this reason, though this is mostly stemmed from his agonising over What Measure is a Non-Digimon?. Eventually he does find a purpose... if a very short-lived one.
- Nozomi, from Yes! Precure 5, is like this at the start of the series, though she finds something to do by the end of the first episode. She's mentioned to have joined a series of different clubs, always ending in disaster.
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Haruhi's titular melancholy comes from the fact that she's desperate for something so fun and exciting that it'll shake up her life. She's joined every club, dated every boy who asked her out (however briefly), and never lasted more than a week with anything but the SOS-dan, which she started herself. The irony here is that the things she's searching for are right there, and trying to keep her from finding out.
- Subverted by Kyon. The novel opens with him claiming he wanted espers, aliens and time travelers to exist, but he just wants to be a sidekick.
- The heroine of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha was somewhat like this when we first met her (and very much like this in the manga supplement of the cinematic adaptation), despite the fact that she was nine years old. When a
boy ferret from another world asked her for help, she rushed to help him. Hers isn't so much a case of Jumped at the Call as it is already at the springboard looking for it, but by the end, she's found her place in life and we know now her as the most Bad Ass Magical Girl in history.
- The ecchi anime series Golden Boy has this with the hero's lust for women. Every episode he meets some new ridiculously attractive woman, and goes on an epic-level mission to win her favor. It inevitably ends with him having somehow managed to win her heart, leaving her ready and wanting... and watching him as he heads off into the sunset, off to win his next prize without even having claimed the last. (Oh, Japan.)
- In the manga one of the girls of the week shows the dark side of this trope. During her arc she gradual falls out of love with with her master, and in love with Kintaro because he will not break no matter what she does to him. So after he leaves because he has learned what he wanted to that arc she decides to chase after him to find a new purpose. In her efforts to track him down she runs across some of the people he helped in the past. She systematically broke them to find out if the purpose they gained from meeting him could be one she could use.
- Autor from Princess Tutu starts to do this when it turns out he's not "chosen" to be Drosselmeyer's heir. He even lampshades it in one scene, when he marches through the streets of his town grumbling to himself "What was I born into this world for?!"
- Lelouch Lamperouge was shown to have elements of this in the first episode, before he got his Evil Eye. He even threatened suicide early on when the prospect of becoming an Ordinary High School Student again was almost forced upon him by the person who gave him the initial opportunity to change his fate. When his memories were rewritten by the Emperor in the beginning of R2, he was shown to have reverted to this feeling of crushing boredom, tired of high school but convinced the adult world wouldn't afford him any opportunities to live up to his potential, since important jobs were generally reserved for nobility. In both cases, he resorted to high-stakes gambling in order to make things interesting. Luckily, encounters with C.C. changed all that.
- Actually, this is more of an inversion, as he already had his purpose to rebel against Britannia, it's just that at the time he didn't feel capable of doing so until C.C. handed him his Geass. He wasn't looking for a purpose in life, he was looking for a way to fulfill that purpose.
- Rather a subversion - he really was looking like having no purpose in first episode, only to reveal he does have one later.
- The titular character of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica has this as her fundamental character problem. Though it gets eclipsed by later events, she was quite willing to become a Magical Girl just to have a purpose.
- Hachiken Yugo from Silver Spoon has this as one of his major problems.
- In Neon Genesis Evangelion, Shinji gets assigned to save the world from aliens starting in the first episode, but he still feels like he doesn't know what his purpose in life is. Pretty much the entire show becomes about this. Midway through the show, he discovers that piloting the Eva gives him purpose, and the last two episodes are all about him now trying to find meaning without it. Other characters have arcs likes this too.
- A darker example happens in Zombie Loan, where Reiichirou Chiba becomes so jaded with his boring life and how predictable his future will be that he kills himself. At which point he comes back to life as a superpowered zombie and becomes a serial killer. So... he did kind of get his wish.
- In To Aru Majutsu no Index, the main character Touma bemoaned his lack of ability, with his power not able to fight thugs, help his test scores, or get him a girlfriend. That is until Index falls onto his balcony and he is suddenly thrust into a world were his ability is the only thing keeping him alive as he desperately tries to save people.
Comic Books
- Destruction, the prodigal of The Endless in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, decides he wants to try creation for a change, but despite enthusiastic dabbling in painting, poetry, sculpting, flamenco guitar, sidewalk chalk art, gourmet cooking, etc. the results are invariably mediocre: he can't seem to find his calling.
- That's because those comics were written in the 80's, before Destruction shaved his beard and raised explosions to a high art as Jamie Hyneman.
- The fact he cut off all ties with the other Endless, including Dream - who's in charge of imagination & artistic inspiration - might have helped
- Parodied in one Far Side strip, where a man pulls a bizarre object, complete with springs and brooms, from between the couch cushions. The comic's caption reads: "Edgar finds his purpose." In the collected edition, Larson said this was based on someone he knew whose girlfriend's father accused him of not knowing what his purpose was.
- Donald Duck has "found and mastered his true purpose in life" about a billion times now. No matter if it means facing danger or going against common sense, he will keep trying again, and again, and again, convinced the next time will be it. What if that doesn't work? Next time surely will!
Film
- This seems to be part of the plot of Lost in Translation. Japan's a funny place to look, though, unless your spiritual satisfaction involves Katamari Damacy, Hello Kitty or hot man-on-man action with Junichiro Koizumi.
- Hellboy II: The Golden Army by Guillermo del Toro: A sadly overlooked segment claims that all humans were made hollow and this trope is used to fill that hollow unsuccessfully.
- ... And of course, Luke Skywalker in Star Wars A New Hope! Constantly complaining about being shut in the door of Uncle Owen's house, he wants to seek to do something significant to change the crapsack reality of the galaxy produced by the Evil Empire. Fortunately, the return of Obiwan Kenobi grants him the wish at last (along with the death of his uncle and aunt), and he has consequently been kicking the empire's sorry ass for the rest of the Star Wars saga.
Literature
Live Action TV
- Series arch-villain Sylar goes through this in his storyline in Volume 4 of Heroes, including a road trip to find his biological father and an identity crisis where he starts having conversations with his dead adoptive mother. With some prodding from dead mommy, he ultimately decides to Take Over the World and attempts to become President of the United States (It Makes Sense in Context).
- Lost: John Locke is so blinded by his need to be special and needed that he ends up getting duped both off-island and on by anyone who tells him that he is important, eventually leading to his demise.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Both Xander and Giles in season 4. Xander goes through a series of McJobs before finding something he's good at and enjoys, and Giles is totally at loose ends, even going as far as watching daytime TV to entertain himself.
- This is a recurring theme for Commander Sinclair on Babylon 5 during the first season. It doesn't get resolved until his third season reappearance where it turns out his true purpose is to go back in time and become Valen.
Music
Theater
- The archetypal example here is Willy Loman, the salesman who dies looking for success and the American Dream in the business world, when his true talent lies in mechanics and carpentry and he's long since turned down the opportunity to go work in the outdoors. Also his son, Biff, who ends up rejecting the dream his father had worked for and decided to make his own way in life, no matter how humble and small it might have been.
- Avenue Q: Princeton, a 22-year-old English major, spends the entire musical looking for his "purpose". He finally thinks he's discovered it when another 22-year-old English major turns up on Avenue Q. His purpose? To write a musical to help people like this kid find their purpose and learn about life, except the idea's shot down by everyone living on Avenue Q. As his neighbor Brian asks, "Are you HIGH?".
- This seems to be part of Nina's problem in In the Heights. Nina is incredibly smart and talented and is the first person in her neighborhood to go to college. But college was a major struggle and after she loses her scholarship she finds herself wondering how exactly she's going to fulfill her goals in life.
- The entire plot of Pippin is the main character's struggle to find his "Corner of the Sky". This being a Stephen Schwartz musical, it's a massive subversion: the players explain to him the end that his search for purpose was "doomed from the start", and try to get him to kill himself in a blaze of glory. Pippin declines, but does he find his purpose? Nope - he gives up, deciding that love is purpose enough.
- Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors.
Video Games
- Over the course of Telltale Game's Sam and Max: Season One, Sybil Pandemik, the pair's neighbor, has a different business in her former tattoo parlor every episode. She's been a psychotherapist, a tabloid publisher, a professional witness, operator of two different dating services (romantic and radiocarbon), a beta tester, and Queen of Canada. In that order.
- Dreamfall is basically all about this, with both Zoe and April being obvious examples though their respective endings differ.
- In Final Fantasy X2, the character Clasko says "I've got to find my place in this world". If you do a sidequest for him, he eventually finds his knack for chocobo ranching. There is some exploration of this theme in the case of the Youth League, New Yevon and the Ronso as well.
- In fact, it's a theme for the main characters too. Yuna having completed her supposed suicide mission is left with a lifetime of summoner training and no ability to use it. Paine is looking for a purpose, any purpose to distract her from what happened on the Crimson Squad, and Rikku (unbelievably, but accurately the most well adjusted of the three) just wants to have fun.
- Vaan from Final Fantasy XII is like this in the middle of the game, where he admits to Ashe that even with his hatred of 'The Empire'' he had no purpose in life, making up stories like "I want to be a Sky Pirate" simply to stave off the feeling of being hollow and alone. He sticks with the party because he's hoping he will find his purpose in life with Ashe.
- The Persona series:
- Somewhat grimly done with Mitsuo is Persona 4 who becomes a copycat serial killer in a vain attempt to feel like he's doing something important or satisfying. When the party enters his section of the TV world, it turns out to be a NES style RPG dungeon, aptly titled "Void Quest." Along the way, we get some delightful narration along the lines of "Mitsuo slays Television Anchor (referring to a real murder in the outside world). Mitsuo gains a level. Mitsuo gains 2 Emptiness points." His shadow (the repressed part of himself) tells him that he has no purpose in life and that he'll never feel satisfied with anything. Unlike everyone else thrown in the TV world up to that point, he doesn't conquer his shadow and merely gets arrested while still in denial.
- Persona 3 has Junpei Iori, who struggles with the knowledge that defeating the Shadows will mean having to face this trope head-on. It also has Yuko Nishiwaki facing the same problem, with her Social Link revolving around her discovering that purpose. It is also treated negatively; Jin Shirato turned evil because Takaya gave him a purpose in life.
- In Heavy Rain one of Norman's endings is this He fails to help catch the origami killer and leaves drugs, ARI and the FBI behind to look for purpose and 'see what the real world's like'.
- Grunt in Mass Effect 2 is simply trying to figure out what he wants out of his own life, since he is supposed to be a strong Krogan but feels nothing for the information imprinted in him by Okeer. Shepard helps Grunt find a purpose by helping him get accepted into clan Urdnot.
- Carver in Dragon Age II, who feels inferior to his Mage sister Bethany and more capable older sibling Hawke, and desperately wants to prove himself to be a skilled fighter. Assuming he survives Act I, this can lead to one of two things happening: Either he contracts the Darkspawn taint and is forced to become a Gray Warden to survive, or he chooses to join the Mage-hunting Templars. Ironically, despite having it forced upon him, he finds work as a Gray Warden fulfilling. Templar, on the other hand, he turns out to not quite have the stomach for...
Visual Novels
- Larry Butz in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney has two reasons for jumping from job to job: one is to chase after women, and the other is because he has no idea what to do with his life. He seems to finally settle on painting at the end of the third game.
- Or not. He winds up playing the Steel Samurai in Investigations after giving up on art, apparently. However, his cameo in Apollo Justice may indicate that he eventually goes back to painting. Hard to tell from a few pixels, but he is wearing his Laurice Deauxnim colors and standing in front of easel.
- Even if it's not painting, he at least seems to have settled on some form of artistic lifestyle.
- Then comes Investigations 2 where he goes right back to being an artist, and his art surprisingly improves. It's a good theory that Larry will probably be an artist for the longest time. After all, in the third game, he wasn't lying when he said that Elise motivated him.
- This trope is why Fate/stay night's Shiro Emiya and Kirei Kotomine are Not so Different. Neither of them has any sense of self-worth and can only find purpose in other people. The difference is that Shirou's is helping people, while Kotomine's (as noted above) is causing people suffering. And even then, Kotomine still isn't happy, because while the suffering of others is the only thing that makes him happy, that in and of itself makes him unhappy because he knows it's wrong.
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Mister Bickles in The Fairly Odd Parents, who seems to have a new lifelong dream every time we see him.
- Homer Simpson has tried every job possible, often because he feels like he wants to try. A recurring gag on the show is Homer protesting to Marge that this new job is his lifelong dream, only for Marge to bring up another "lifelong dream" Homer had which he'd already accomplished. Inevitably, he either gets fired for his incompetence, or abandons it for the sake of his family.
- In The Angry Beavers episode "Fancy Prance," it's revealed Dagget has had several thousand "lifelong dreams," and he adopts a new one ("crusty-but-lovable manager") in the pursuit of helping Norb with his lifelong dream.
- Audrey in Little Shop (the Little Shop of Horrors cartoon) had a new life's ambition in each episode.
- In the musical Seymour sings 'I keep asking God what I'm for/ But he tells me "Gee, I'm not sure."'
- Bob Parr in The Incredibles, mainly because his true calling — superheroism — is illegal.
- Skull Boy, from Ruby Gloom. Each episode, he discovers a talent he didn't know he had, and believes he is part of that heretic. In a musical special, he temporarily runs away to find his place in the world.
- Peri from Spliced.
- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: "Call of the Cutie" reveals that ponies gain their cutie marks after discovering their purpose. This tends to occur around a certain age, leading to Apple Bloom desperately trying to discover her purpose because she doesn't want to be the last young pony in her class left 'blank-flanked'.
- The episode ends with Apple Bloom and two classmates forming a power trio called the Cutie Mark Crusaders, specifically devoted to carrying out this trope. They spend various episodes trying to get their marks.
- This trope is also used to a lesser extent in "Winter Wrap-up", with Twilight spending most of the episode singing and attempting to find a way to help in the titular event.
- Depressingly played with in the animated short "The Monk's Purpose," which aired on Liquid Television. A pilgrim comes to a stone idol in the desert, and asks it, "What is my purpose?" the idol comes to life and eats him, then spits out his staff onto a nearby pile of similar staffs.
- An episode of Little Bill played this lite, with Bill going around trying to "find my thing", the thing he's good at.
- Betty Staines from Staines Down Drains, who is shown starting a new job at the beginning of every episode.
Real Life
- Uruguayan rock band El Cuarteto de Nos satirizes the trend in their song "Ya no sé qué hacer conmigo
 " ("I don't know what to do with me"). The song carries the trope to the logical extreme: when one tries too many (often contradictory) things, one tends to end as a Stepford Smiler of the mask-only type.
I hear a voice who says, with good reason
"Yo, always changing; don't change anymore"
And I am still becoming more the same
I don't know what to do with me
- The Beatles once got bored with the void life of a superstar, so they went to India (or somewhere) looking for a spiritual guide to give them the purpose of life. It failed. The result was the song Across the Universe:
Jai Guru Deava Ommm (Which means "Thanks spiritual master" in Sanskrit)
Nothing's gonna change my world.
- Nearly every person who has ever lived has gone through this at some point. For some, their purpose comes easy. Others, however look so long and find so little, that they may assume their life is meaningless.
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