When fire nearly destroyed 300 journals, rereading them revealed an unexpected truth — and the life purpose I’d been searching for all along
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“Get out! Get out now!” a woman screamed, as she pounded on my door. I flung the door open to find the high school principal who lived next door.
“My condo’s on fire!” she cried, yanking my arm. At the curb, we waved our arms wildly over our heads to flag a fire engine careening down the street.
Firemen toting hoses raced past us. But the two-story fire proved too much. My neighbor’s condo burned to the ground, and mine came close.
The next day, I ventured back to assess the damage. I poked my head in my second-floor office, afraid of what I’d find. Amazingly, my diaries still lined the floor-to-ceiling shelves. The flames had spared my most cherished possession. I packed the three hundred journals in the trunk of my car. Maybe God had saved them for a reason. I vowed to read every one before another disaster did destroy them. Each night after work, I’d devour another volume. It became my new fascinating pastime.
In the diaries, spanning two decades, I began to view myself as a protagonist in a novel, struggling to make her way in the world.
I had achieved some of the milestones of adulthood — college degrees, home ownership, and steady employment. But one accomplishment remained spectacularly out of reach: marriage and children. I watched myself madly search for “the one,” while failing to acknowledge that multiple soulmates appeared in my life. These individuals did not take the form of a romantic partner who asked me to walk down the aisle. They were soulmates of a different sort. They were friends, teachers, counselors, coaches, and gurus, whose gentle guidance steered me toward what my soul most craved.
There was Dr. Deva, an Indian guru, who taught me how to connect to God through meditation. There was Pamela, my teacher at psychic college, who taught me how to cleanse the toxicity from my energy field, and, in turn, how to reclaim my own energy. There was Linda, a Hollywood script editor, who taught me how to express my feelings in my writing, after a decade of hiding them as a business journalist. And there was Robert, a friend who told me I had skills as a healer, “through your voice, you know, your words.”
The renowned medical intuitive, Carolyn Myss, once observed, sometimes you try and try to reach a goal, but fail. That’s because it’s the wrong goal. It’s not your sacred contract, your life purpose. Clearly, I needed to trade the marital vow for a different kind of vow.
My soulmates guided me to two domains: communication and healing. That’s where my talents and interests came alive. After multiple drafts, I narrowed my sacred contract to the simple “heal with words.” To fulfill that contract, I enrolled in a graduate counseling program, That led to seventeen years as a career counselor, first at UCLA and later at a one hundred-year-old skid row mission.
In my curriculum and profession, I learned how to help clients define their true calling, with assessments such as the Strong Interest Inventory, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and CliftonStrengths. A less common tool – the narrative assessment – I learned, could be equally helpful. In a written narrative, clients address questions, such as “When was I the happiest?” “What am I most proud of having accomplished?” “When do I fall into the ‘flow,’ where I am so engaged in an activity, time and worries end?”
Recalling the excavation of my diaries, I realized that my entries automatically answered questions, such as these. My journals served as one long narrative assessment.
Jane Goodall, the well-known chimpanzee researcher, created a video that she asked to be released after her death. A portion of her talk, aired in 2025, perfectly articulates the essence of a true calling: “I want you to understand that each and every one of you has a role to play…your life matters and you are here for a reason. Every single day you live, you make a difference in the world, and you get to choose the difference that you make.”
Ms. Goodall found her true calling. And whoever has stumbled on this article, may you find yours, as well…who knows, maybe within the pages of your own diaries.
You may also enjoy reading 20/20: Achieving A Clear Life Vision Through Journaling, by Yanik Silver.
