It sometimes seems to me that there are two distinct ways to live life.

Now I'm not talking about ambitiously driving ourselves forward (bit of a liver issue perhaps in Chinese Medicine).  Simply are you living life in neutral or are you going somewhere on purpose.

I once read an interesting statement "We all need a compelling reason to live.  It doesn't matter so much what that reason is..  So long as you have it".

"How is this relevant to health and Chinese Medicine?" You ask.  Good question.
Expressing our creative self is an expression of Heart and Liver energies in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine).  Taoist philosophy which is one influence of Chinese Medicine reminds us that if there is any change brought about to our essential self it would be the growth we have found in life - our expression of ourself.

Bit esoteric.  Perhaps.  In clinic we often observe liver and heart energy related pathologies arise when people have forgotten to express their essential self.

What would it look like to express one's essential self?  The answer seems as varied as the number of people I know:

Some examples:

Above all this.  Living life on purpose to me is simply living life awake.... Aware that life is a finite resource and you have an essential, valuable contribution to make to the world.

Are you living life on purpose?