On Play, Purpose, and the Quiet Work of Coming Home to Ourselves
We live in a world that moves fast. We’re encouraged to perform, to achieve, to optimise. But beneath the pace and pressure, many of us are quietly yearning - not just for rest, but for resonance. For lives that feel less like a list of milestones and more like something deeply our own.
In Japan, there’s a word for this longing: ikigai - a reason for being. It describes the sense of alignment that comes when what we love, what we’re good at, and what the world needs begin to overlap. But ikigai is not just about career or productivity. It is about meaning. Wholeness. The feeling of being in the right place, doing the right thing, in the right way - even if just for a moment.
So how do we find that?
Not always through striving. Often, we find it through play.
Not the kind of play we squeeze into the margins of our lives - Friday nights to blow off steam or mindless scrolling to numb the noise. But true play. The kind that invites curiosity, wonder, and delight. The kind that belongs to childhood - when we were ruled by joy, not driven by goals.
That’s what we explored at our most recent Three’s Club supper club. A warm and thoughtful evening, not designed for networking but for grounding. The room was filled with successful, ambitious professionals - but for once, no one was performing. Instead, we asked real questions:
What did your teachers say about you as a child?
What did you want to be when you were younger?
What does success look like to you now?
Guided by the brilliant Ashlie Walker - CBHypnotherapist and life coach - we were invited to pause and look inward. To return to a part of ourselves that many of us had abandoned in the race to “become.” And what we uncovered was simple but striking: somewhere along the line, we had forgotten how to play.
Not because we didn’t want to - but because we’d convinced ourselves it didn’t matter.
But it does.
Play is not separate from purpose. It is often the first doorway to it.
It’s in the opera you don’t fully understand but feel deeply moved by. The unexpected emotion that rises in a gallery. The quiet fascination during a tea ceremony that leaves you longing to learn more. These moments are not distractions, they are clues. Cultural enrichment isn’t just entertainment. It’s how we remember who we are - before the pressure, before the polish.
There have been countless academic studies on ‘play as inquiry’, especially with children. The most powerful findings didn’t come through formal interviews. They came through play. In those unstructured, imaginative moments, children revealed truths they couldn’t yet explain. As adults, we forget this - that play is a form of knowing. A way of accessing wisdom the intellect can’t always reach.
We don’t need to abandon ambition. Life will still ask for resilience, tenacity, hard work. But we do need to leave space for softness. So our success doesn’t lose its colour. So our achievements mean something more than metrics.
To live with purpose is not only to pursue goals. It is to feel deeply. To stay open. To follow the threads of joy and curiosity wherever they lead.
Because perhaps the road to ikigai - and to a life that truly belongs to us - isn’t built solely through hard work.
Perhaps it begins when we allow ourselves, once again, to play.