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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Link''': [[In Harm's Way|Gee, it sure is boring around here]].
'''King Harkinian''': [[Home, Sweet Home|My boy, this peace is what all true warriors strive for!]]
'''Link''': [[You Just Had to Say It|I just wonder what Ganon's up to!]]
|''[[The Legend of Zelda CDI Games|Link: The Faces Of Evil]]''}}
Some people receive the [[Call to Adventure]], but others [[Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here|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
Alternatively, the character indeed ''had'' found [[Glory Days|that satisfactory goal of life in the past]], but [[I Coulda Been a Contender|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.
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This is what happens when those that [[I Just Want to Be Special|Just Wanted To Be Special]] and would have [[Jumped At the Call]] [[Missed the Call|never get the opportunity]]. They just never found their [[Goal in Life]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[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.
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** Note that this is a guy who began the series with only one friend (the girl he ends up married to) and she spent most of their interactions yelling at him. The moments when he started treating Kuwabara as an ally, saved Kurama's life, and trusted Hiei for no good reason respectively set him up to completely change everything at least as much as dying and getting superpowers ever did. And he'd never have survived long enough to recover from his second death without his team.
* 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-Human?|What Measure is a Non-Digimon?]]. Eventually he does find a purpose... [[Redemption Equals Death|if a very short-lived one.]]
* Nozomi, from ''[[Yes!
* ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya
** 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 ''[[Angst|very]]'' much like this in the manga supplement of the [[The Movie|cinematic adaptation]]), despite the fact that she was ''nine years old.'' When a <s>boy</s> 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 [[Badass]] [[Magical Girl]] in history.
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** 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 [[Happiness in Slavery|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 {{spoiler|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?!"
* [[Code Geass
** 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. He's just ''deep'' under cover.
* The titular character of ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica
* Hachiken Yugo from ''[[Silver Spoon]]'' has this as one of his major problems.
* In ''[[
* A darker example happens in ''[[Zombie Loan]]'', where {{spoiler|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.
** He is an ''extremely'' happy character. So, yeah. Cruel, psychotic bastard, but quite happy.
* In ''[[
* Maon from ''[[
* ''[[Bleach
** He was quite depressed, and worked through it quite well, but his lack of real interest in anything still showed. After being that powerful, you can't really go back.
** Luckily, all his friends in the Gotei 13 got together to restore him, and his dad stabbed him [[It Makes Sense in Context|helpfully]] [[In the Back]] in an utterly literal sense!
* This is Yagami Light's state of being as ''[[Death Note]]'' opens. He despises most people, especially his school friends, finds no challenge or meaning in anything, has no hobbies, views his highest ambitions as a matter of the course of time, and yet ''always does everything perfectly'', like laughing at jokes that aren't funny told by people he loathes because good, clean-cut students socialize, and studying for exams he could pass in his sleep. He's probably a clinically depressed clinical psychopath, with reputation-defense and control issues to beat the band. It's no wonder really he wound up finding his purpose in conquering the world by fear and murder once he got his hands on an [[Artifact of Doom]] that removed the consequences from hurting people.
* This trope is what at least [[Akumetsu|Niikura Shou]] was experiencing when he discovered his origins and Akumetsu the clone army was born. Most other Shous are only shown after a lot of brainsharing, body-replacement, and Akumetsu's launch, so [[Send in
* In ''[[Kyou Kara Maou]]'', Shibuya Yuuri (Harajuku Fuuri) of [[Wide
** But he doesn't take the kingship because they're offering him power and meaning; the whole deal freaks him out, until he can only influence whether there's war by accepting. It takes him a while after that to adapt, and even then it's largely less him 'growing up' than him forgetting to whne or worry about himself because he [[Chronic Hero Syndrome|MUST SAVE THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD AS SOON AS HE NOTICES EVERY PROBLEM IT HAS]]. If he weren't such an unobservant moron, he'd work himself to the bone. As it is, he almost-dies way too often for his [[Mr. Fanservice|retainers']] comfort.
== [[Comic Books]] ==▼
▲== 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 [[
** The fact he cut off all ties with the other Endless, including Dream - who's in charge of imagination & artistic inspiration - might have been a factor.
* 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, [[The Determinator|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]] ==▼
▲== 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 World|crapsack]] reality of the galaxy produced by the [[Evil Empire]]. Fortunately, the return of Obiwan Kenobi grants him the wish at last [[Tear Jerker|(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]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* Subverted in ''[[Vorkosigan Saga]]''. Mark states that his only purpose in life was to kill Miles and Aral, and now that Ser Galen was dead, he had no purpose in life anymore. Cordelia reassures him that almost no one has any purpose in the first place.
* Mr. Toad of ''[[The Wind in
* The chief preoccupation of Pierre Bezukhov and Andrei Bolkonsky, two of the main characters of ''[[War and Peace]]''.
* Arthur Dent of [[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy]] fame. From his initial vague unease and doubt about working in BBC radio, to the end of the universe, and beyond.
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* At the start of Cate Tiernan's Immortal Beloved, the immortal main character has been going from party to party with her immortal friends because she had absolutely nothing better to do, and is kind of getting sick of the whole thing.
* I'm amazed no one has mentioned Tennyson's Ulysses. I'd quote a relevant snipit, but I'd have to quote the whole poem. (Yes, he called Odysseus Ulysses - deal with it.)
* The book of [[The Bible
{{quote|
* {{spoiler|Kirei Kotomine}} from ''[[Fate
* In Michael Stackpole's ''Age of Discovery'', Nirati Anturasi spends much of the first book desperately looking for her special talent, which she theoretically could become a mystic at. She later decides that the only thing she ever accomplished was {{spoiler|"dying really well", and fortunately for her, there a vacancy in the [[The Grim Reaper|God of Death]] position.}}
* [[Big Bad|Series arch-villain]] Sylar goes through this in his storyline in Volume 4 of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|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]]).▼
▲== Live Action TV ==
▲* [[Big Bad|Series arch-villain]] Sylar goes through this in his storyline in Volume 4 of ''[[Heroes (TV)|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
** Garibaldi points out in an early episode that Sinclair goes about looking for his purpose by putting himself into suicidal situations. Garibaldi's theory is that Sinclair is doing this because "it's easier to find something worth dying for than something worth living for." In another episode, Delenn implies that this trope is the reason she didn't tell Sinclair about her decision to go down to Epsilon 3 to try and get the Great Machine working. She feared that if Sinclair had gone with, he would have plugged himself into the Machine, and she felt his destiny lay elsewhere.
* ''[[Oobi]]'': The episode "Grown-Up!" revolves around Oobi and Kako pretending to have different occupations that grown-ups have, until they're eventually convinced by Uma that [[Growing Up Sucks]].
== Music ==
* Christian rock artist Michael W. Smith's first hit in the early 1990s was "Place In This World", whose chorus is thus:
{{quote|
''roaming through this night to find
''my place in this world
''my place in this world
''nothing left to lean on
''I need your light to help me find
''my place in this world
''my place in this world. }}
* Uruguayan rock band El Cuarteto de Nos satirizes the trend in their song "[http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/e/el_cuarteto_de_nos/ya_no_se_que_hacer_conmigo.html 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 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'':▼
{{quote|
''Nothing's gonna change my world. }}▼
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
▲* 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.
== [[Theater]] ==
* The archetypal example here is Willy Loman, the [[Death of a Salesman|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". {{spoiler|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 [[Who Would Want to Watch Us?|the idea's shot down by everyone living on Avenue Q]]. As his neighbor Brian asks, "Are you HIGH?"}}.
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* Seymour in ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]''.
== [[Video Games]] ==▼
▲== Video Games ==
* Over the course of Telltale Game's ''[[Sam and Max Freelance Police|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 {{spoiler|though their respective endings differ}}.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy X
** 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.
** All of Spira seems to be have fallen into this after Sin's downfall. It's still an improvement since the only "purpose" they had when Sin was around was simple survival.
* Vaan from ''[[
* The ''[[Persona (
** Somewhat grimly done with Mitsuo is ''[[
** ''[[
* In ''[[Heavy Rain]]'' one of {{spoiler|Norman's}} endings is this {{spoiler|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 [[Mad Scientist|Okeer]]. Shepard helps Grunt find a purpose by {{spoiler|helping him get accepted into clan Urdnot}}.
* Carver in ''[[Dragon Age II]]'', who feels [[Overshadowed
* Canderous Ordo of ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' was once a respected Mandalorian soldier. His people's defeat led to him being desperate enough to take a job cracking heads for a petty crime boss. When he finds the [[Player Character]], he teams up with them to find better prospects. At the end of the game, he admits that he needs more in his life than fighting for fighting's sake. And he ''certainly'' finds it by the second game {{spoiler|by becoming Mandalore the Preserver, and rebuilding his people}}.
* In ''[[Xolga and Mr. Toko]]'', part of Xolga's backstory is that his father abandoned his alcoholic wife and his son in order to "pursue [his] dreams", essentially leaving his child at the mercy of [[Abusive Parents|an alternatively abusive and neglectful mother]]. Needless to say, Xolga has issues with both his [[Parental Abandonment]] and people who takes this trope attitude in life. {{spoiler|At the end of the first series, the man returns with his wife after she [[Driven to Suicide|attempted suicide]] due to grief over their son disappearance. Talking with a plushified Xolga, the man confess that he ''still'' hasn't reached his dream, but hopes that rebuilding his marriage will give him some purpose at last.}}
* Kogasa Tatara's [[Woobie]] status in ''[[Touhou]]'' comes in large part from her questioning the meaning of her existence and wondering what her purpose in life is in the face of her repeated failures at surprising people and the rejection and bullying that ensue. She goes as far as wondering if going back to being an inanimate umbrella would finally give her a purpose.
=== 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. {{spoiler|He seems to finally settle on painting at the end of the third game.}}
** {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|painting}}, he at least seems to have settled on {{spoiler|some form of artistic lifestyle.}}
** {{spoiler|Then comes ''Investigations 2'' where he goes right back to being an artist, and his art surprisingly
* This trope is why ''[[Fate/stay
* From the game ''[[BTS (band)|BTS]] World'', this trope makes the plot of Jeongguk's Another Story. At the beginning of his story he is shown wandering by all the clubs of his school, [[Renaissance Man|trying and doing it ''excellently'' in all of them]], but abandoning them immediately due to disinterest; this earns him the nickname of "Club Killer", as many members of whatever club he tried and abandoned resign immediately as they feel they cannot be as good as him. We quickly learn that the only thing that can hold his interest is taekwondo, on which he used to be a prodigy but had to abandon because of what at the time seemed a [[Career-Ending Injury]]; once he learns that he is fit enough to practice the sport again, he immediately turns all his efforts into getting admitted on his school's taekwondo club.
** The trope kicks again in Another Story Season Two. {{spoiler|Jeongguk}} found purpose by working in [[The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday|the Magic Shop]], helping people who made a wish within the place. {{spoiler|But after making a mistake while helping a client, the [[Genius Loci|store]] fires him. The store however offers him his position back if he manages to find a person that remembers him, so the poor guy has to run all over the city tracking back his last clients in a desperate attempt to get his life purpose back.}}
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Fetch Quest
==
* Mister Bickles in ''[[The Fairly
▲* ''[[Fetch Quest Saga of the Twelve Artifacts (Webcomic)|Fetch Quest Saga of the Twelve Artifacts]]'': {{spoiler|Lionel}} is searching for a purpose in life that eludes him, what with {{spoiler|his half-elf blood making him outlive his friends and [[Love Interest|love interests]]}}.
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|
▲* Mister Bickles in ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'', who seems to have a new lifelong dream every time we see him.
▲* [[The Simpsons|Homer Simpson]] has [[New Job Episode|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 [["Friend or Idol?" Decision|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
* 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
** 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. {{Spoiler|Hilariously, they finally get their own marks when they realize that they (both individually and as a trio) are specially good at making ''others'' ponies understand ''theirs''}}
** This trope is also used to a lesser extent in "Winter Wrap-up", with Twilight spending most of the episode [["I Want" Song|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?" {{spoiler|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
* Betty Staines from ''[[Staines Down Drains]]'', who is shown starting a new job at the beginning of every episode.
* ''[[Rolie Polie Olie]]'': The plot of the episode "What to Be" focuses around Olie thinking about what occupation he should take when he grows up, from a paleontologist to an orchestra conductor.
* ''[[Justice League (Animation)|Justice League]]''; Amazo's goal, as of his final appearance. Upon realizing his powers were near-limitless but not knowing what to do with them, he consigned himself to wandering the universe, searching for a reason to exist.
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
▲== Real Life ==
▲* Uruguayan rock band El Cuarteto de Nos satirizes the trend in their song "[http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/e/el_cuarteto_de_nos/ya_no_se_que_hacer_conmigo.html 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.
▲{{quote| ''I hear a voice who says, with good reason''<br />
▲''"Yo, always changing; don't change anymore"''<br />
▲''And I am still becoming more the same''<br />
▲''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'':
▲{{quote| Jai Guru Deava Ommm (Which means "Thanks spiritual master" [[Bilingual Bonus|in Sanskrit]])<br />
▲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. [[Heroic BSOD|Others]], however look so long and find so little, that [[Despair Event Horizon|they may assume their life is]] [[Nietzsche Wannabe|meaningless]].
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[[Category:Goals and Objectives Index]]
[[Category:Call to Adventure]]
[[Category:Introspection Tropes]]
[[Category:Motivation Index]]
[[Category:
|