One’s Soul Purpose

A think piece written on my feelings, reactions, and thoughts about the Disney Pixar movie Soul.

Published on Thursday December 31st, 2020

Written by James Koutrakos

Let me preface this by saying I’m probably writing the 256,849,137th think piece, article, amalgamation of words about how 2020 was a year for the history books. The type of history book you want to use to hold up your table stand and never, EVER open. The type of history book you spend $300 on at school, you use one sentence from one page of it, and never open again. 

2020 had a promising start which took a nosedive leading to a global pandemic and our very way of living changed in what felt like an instant. It’s been a never-ending routine of consistent change and pivoting. The feelings of fear and uncertainty have been rampant and have worn me, and what I can imagine being the majority of the world, down to a depressing lull.  

Though when the lockdowns first started, it gave me a much-needed break from the hustle and bustle of school, work, and co-op life. Up to that point, I was constantly thinking about what the next move is: am I going to be able to get that job promotion? will I make it to this type of industry before I am 26? Will I find my purpose in life or will all this day-in, day-out 12 hours of work a day be meaningless? along with other questions that I could not find the answer to. 

These questions still lived and breathed throughout the pandemic. I was still overthinking about how people’s lives have already started and I have yet to find what it is I truly want to do. I kept relating the academic and professional success of others to the self-created failure of my own. Having a negative bias to block out the good and focus on the bad.  

About a day or two after Christmas, I went to work feeling down. Really down. Getting upset about small issues and thoughts flying around in my head, getting agitated about minor processes not being done correctly, and of course, overthinking about how my thoughts will somehow jump out of my head and backfire on me. I couldn’t take it from the headache it caused me and I left work early, a first for me for as long as I’ve been working. 

I went home and kept thinking and thinking, eating and watching YouTube to distract myself, until by the end of the day I accepted my “episode” for what it was, and tried to relax in the hours leading up to bed. That was until I was scrolling on Disney+ and saw the newly released movie, Soul. 

This article will spoil some of the movie, so if you do not want to be spoiled please watch it before reading on from here.

Soul is a movie about a man named Joe, a music teacher and aspiring Jazz musician residing in New York, who is finally given a shot and opportunity to fulfill what he believes is his life purpose before he dies suddenly. He is sent to a hypothetical world (The Great Before) where souls find their spark before coming to Earth and becoming people. 

He is instructed to mentor a lost soul by the name of 22, who has been trying to prevent herself from going to Earth for what we initially believe is because of boredom and disgust of Earth. 

Needless to say, the premise was interesting and I wanted to see this movie.

When I started watching the movie, here’s what I predicted: Joe goes to The Great Beyond/Before, he does all he can so he can get back and play the big jazz gig, 22 stays in The Great Before and Joe plays the gig, Joe does a bad job, but doesn’t give up. I assumed there would be an underlying message of “do what you want, regardless of what people think”. I liked how the movie played out much better than my prediction and the message conveyed exceeded my expectations. Allow me to explain. 

As we go through the movie the ongoing theme is that Joe is set in his ways with a literal “do-or-die” mentality. It’s either he succeeds in his dreams of being a successful jazz musician and achieves a next level of happiness and joy, or he considers himself a failure and his life meaningless. He thinks this as he believes his spark and reason for living is to play jazz music.

I believe this thought process is one that is very common amongst many people living in today’s society. Believing that your passion, your job, a hobby, or even another person is your reason for living and being unable to obtain what you deem to be satisfactory is as good as not being alive in the first place. In other words, putting all your eggs into one very specific basket and banking everything on this one aspect of your life to make you happy forever. 

As the movie progresses, 22 is given a chance to walk a mile in Joe’s shoes. 22, being new to the world, is seeing everything the world has to offer for the very first time, even something as small as riding the subway or eating a slice of pizza. Joe is confident that small things like eating pizza, walking on a sidewalk, or looking at nature is “just normal everyday living” to quote him exactly. 

To end my spoiler filled synopsis, Joe ends up helping 22 get her pass to finally go to Earth, argues that it was his love for music and his help that got her to get that completed pass, and takes it for himself so he can play at the gig which is so important to him. After he plays the gig, he… feels no different. No immense happiness. Nothing magically changed inside of him. He was happy in the moment, and then he felt just like he did before. At this point is where we see the biggest omission from Joe’s way of thinking, which the movie does SUCH a good job of making you realize. 

He goes back home, empties his pockets of simple things that 22 collected along their journey, and starts playing the piano and reminiscing about his own life, though this time he looks at the smaller “everyday living” memories in a different lens. He looks back to when he ate a slice of pie alone in a diner, not focusing on how he ate alone, but on how damn good that slice of pie tasted. He remembers the moments he spent with his parents, with his love for teaching, and a tear of joy fell from his eye. This scene was the most beautiful one of the entire movie.

The lesson that this movie taught me is that big, grandiose moments or passions are not one’s reason for living, they will not be the main and only thing to make one happy. You shouldn’t put a very hard to meet success criteria on your life and you shouldn’t hate yourself when you are unsuccessful in checking off all the boxes. It is important to have goals, and to make those goals achievable, but do not make those goals your reason for living. 

I want to really emphasize how important this message was for me to hear. 

The scene of him reminiscing made me sit back and reminisce too. It made me think of all of the times I went to work stressed out about mundane tasks, or something someone said to me that I felt was unfair, or if I should’ve sent that text message, or if the picture I posted on Instagram was weird, or if I’m a failure because I haven’t gotten into a corporate job right out of school, etc., etc., etc.  

The bottom line is that it hit me right in the gut. It feels like that after years of stressing and hating myself and dreading what tomorrow brings, I’ve learned to not focus too much on tomorrow and love what I have today.

It’s that I’ve reached a moment in my life, coming off of an incredibly dreadful year, where I can finally let myself breathe and say to myself “enjoy life for what it offers to you, not for what you want from it.”

(Side note: I googled around and couldn’t find that line previously said before so I am 100% claiming it, see below)

This isn’t an ad to say “go watch Disney Pixar’s Soul”, but go watch Disney Pixar’s Soul. 

Thank you for reading.