Millions of people are being taught to search for their “purpose” as if it were a hidden object waiting to be discovered inside themselves. The modern formula is familiar: identify what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs and what someone will pay you for. Where the four circles overlap, the answer supposedly lies. The method is commonly presented as the ancient Japanese wisdom of ikigai. Yet, as an article published by DIE ZEIT points out, the famous four-circle diagram is neither ancient nor originally Japanese.
The diagram was developed by Spanish astrologer Andrés Zuzunaga. At its centre originally stood the word “Zweck”, or purpose. In 2014, British blogger Marc Winn replaced that word with “Ikigai”. He later acknowledged that this was essentially his only contribution to the diagram, yet the image spread across the internet and became a staple of coaching seminars. The historical distinction matters because the Japanese concept itself means something considerably different. The Japanese psychiatrist Mieko Kamiya described ikigai in the 1960s as a feeling for what makes life worth living. It could be found in small things such as morning tea or gardening. It had nothing to do with being paid.
Yet the four-circle diagram succeeded because it speaks to something much deeper than career planning. It speaks to the human desire to matter. The business of Berufungscoaching, or calling coaching, has grown around precisely that longing: the hope that life has a particular meaning and that each individual possesses a unique purpose waiting to be uncovered. The American philosopher Rebecca Goldstein calls this the “mattering instinct”.
DIE ZEIT places this modern culture of self-discovery against a strikingly different image: Caravaggio’s The Calling of Saint Matthew, painted around 1600 in Rome’s San Luigi dei Francesi. The biblical episode is remarkably brief. Jesus sees a tax collector named Matthew, says “Follow me”, and Matthew rises and follows him. There is no explanation of Matthew’s qualifications, no assessment of his abilities and no examination of his passions. Most importantly, Matthew does not discover his calling by looking inward. His calling finds him.
That reversal is central. The modern coaching message says: find your purpose within yourself. The biblical stories of calling say almost the opposite. Moses is asked to lead his people out of Egypt and responds with five objections. Jeremiah believes he is too young to become a prophet. Jonah is instructed to preach the destruction of Nineveh and instead boards a ship travelling in the wrong direction. Paul does not apply for his mission. None of them appears to be conducting an exercise in self-optimisation. They resist the call before accepting it.
Even the history of the word “Bestimmung” points towards an older understanding. In the 15th century, “bestimmen” meant “durch die Stimme festsetzen” — to establish something through a voice. Only from the 18th century did it also acquire the meaning of determining or defining something. To have a “Bestimmung”, in its earlier sense, therefore meant being determined by a voice rather than determining oneself.
The same tension appears in the word “Beruf”. Sociologist Max Weber suggested that its secular meaning as “work” was connected to Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible. Luther wrote that everyone should remain in the “Beruf” in which he was called. But the reference was not simply to employment. It concerned one’s situation in life as a whole. Again, the important distinction was that one did not call oneself. One was called.
Modern coaching has reversed this direction. Even coaches who explicitly draw upon a Christian understanding of humanity can describe calling as a treasure already buried within the individual, waiting to be uncovered. The caller has disappeared. What remains is the individual searching inside.
The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor traced this transformation to the late 18th century. Jean-Jacques Rousseau shifted the moral authority towards an inner voice, while Johann Gottfried Herder argued that every person possessed “his own measure”. Authenticity consequently became associated with following one’s inner self. “Become who you are”, a phrase originating with the ancient Greek poet Pindar and later popularised by Friedrich Nietzsche, became a defining modern aspiration.
But Taylor also places a limit on this emancipation from external authority. Meaning cannot simply be awarded to oneself. It requires horizons that exist independently of personal preferences. Self-discovery therefore cannot be merely an internal monologue. It also requires conversation with others. A voice calling a person towards something may be difficult to hear alone.
The culture of self-searching became a mass phenomenon in the 2000s through Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat, Pray, Love. Its story of a woman travelling through Italy, India and Indonesia in search of herself became an international success, selling more than twelve million copies, appearing in more than thirty languages and becoming a film starring Julia Roberts. “Follow your passion” became a slogan of the decade.
Yet the story itself contained an irony. Gilbert’s journey was financed by an advance from her publisher. Her search for herself was, in a literal sense, commissioned work.
In 2015, Gilbert publicly modified her famous formula after a woman told her that she had spent years searching unsuccessfully for the single passion around which her life could be organised. Gilbert suggested following curiosity rather than passion. But the basic mechanism remained the same: listen inward.
The decisive changes in Gilbert’s own life, however, came from outside. In 2016, her closest friend Rayya Elias became terminally ill with cancer. Gilbert left her husband, entered a relationship with Elias and accompanied her until her death. In her final days, Elias told Gilbert that her task had never been perfect caregiving, but learning compassion towards herself. The advocate of inner searching had been confronted by an external call.
There is also a darker consequence to the language of passion. Research by psychologists at Duke University in 2020 found that poor treatment of employees, including unpaid overtime, weekend work and degrading tasks, was regarded as more legitimate when those employees were described as passionate. If someone is believed to be living their calling, exploitation can become easier for others to justify.
The alternative proposed by the DIE ZEIT article is not a rejection of self-knowledge, but a different understanding of how meaning emerges. A person may find a calling by allowing themselves to be found by it. It cannot be forced, but circumstances can make it more audible: listening to what others need, entering into conversation rather than remaining inside an internal monologue. The voice may come through a child, a love, a job offer or a political and social event such as a refugee crisis.
To matter, however, is to matter to someone. Meaning requires an addressee. A person caring for someone who is ill may be profoundly important to that person even without receiving gratitude. Recognition is not the essential ingredient. Dependence is.
That is why “finding your purpose” may be a misleading description of what gives human life meaning. Purpose, in this older conception, is not a wellness programme and not necessarily something that feels good. A calling can be demanding, inconvenient and risky. It may resemble an instruction rather than a suggestion.
Caravaggio understood that tension centuries before the modern coaching industry. In his painting, Matthew does not discover himself. Jesus sees him. The finger points towards him. The call comes from outside.
In the early eighth century, the Benedictine monk Bede the Venerable described the biblical scene with the words “Miserando atque eligendo” — looking upon him with mercy and choosing him. Pope Francis adopted those words as his motto. As a cardinal, Jorge Mario Bergoglio would visit San Luigi dei Francesi whenever he was in Rome to look at Caravaggio’s painting. In 2013, shortly after becoming pope, he said of the finger of Jesus pointing towards Matthew: “so bin ich, so fühle ich mich, wie Matthäus” — this is how I am, this is how I feel, like Matthew.
At some point, a copy of the painting was brought to the Vatican guesthouse where he lived.
His calling had found him.
