The New Owner Of The Root Asked A Question We All Must Answer: ‘What Is Your Assignment?’ Don’t Have An Answer? Here’s Some Help.

At The Root 100 Gala a question was asked that was simple but profound.  Ashley Allison, the new owner of the website, took the stage and challenged everyone in the room.

“What is your assignment,” she asked while looking out across a room filled with some of the brightest Black people in America. “What are you going to do in this moment?” This is a question that every person, Black or white, must answer.

Too many live like they are lost at sea. Rudderless wanderers who drift from one place to another with nothing driving them. When the storms of life come, as they inevitably will, they have nothing to keep them anchored. Malcolm X said it like this: “if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.”

That is what Ashley Allison was getting at when she asked that question. But her question gives rise to another. How does one find that assignment?

Most of us have jobs. A 9 to 5 that pays the bills and puts food on the table. For many, that job, while important, is not their assignment. That is, it is not what they are put on this earth to do.

Now, the temptation is to go overtly spiritual. To say that our assignment comes from God…but that is too easy.

Not everyone believes in the same divine being. Some may say it is Jesus. Others may call it Allah. Then there are those who do not believe in a divine being at all and take a more humanistic approach.

So, to say that our assignment is found in a church or a mosque is too narrow. It would leave too many out. So, the question remains: where do you find it? Honestly, I think the answer is staring us right in the face.

What is the purpose for you? How do you find what you’re here to do?

People do not discover what they are truly meant to do at the same time. Let’s look at two telling examples.  

Matin Luther King, Jr. was relatively lucky. He was 26 when he was tapped to lead the Montgomery bus boycott—the thing that thrust him into the limelight and turned a small town pastor into a national civil rights leader. For Toni Morrison, it did not happen at such a young age.

She was a professor for 9 years at Texas Southern then at Howard University before she changed gears and started editing textbooks and then fiction. She could have made a life for herself at any one of those professions, but that was not her assignment. When she published her first novel, The Bluest Eye, at the age of 39 she had found what she was put on earth to do. It just took her a while for her to find it.

So how do you find your assignment? It’s simple.

One path to finding it is following what you love. Find what drives you and pursue it relentlessly. Understand that it may come early in life like it did for King. It may tarry and come later like it did for Morrison.

But it is also important to understand that sometimes the thing you’re supposed to do won’t find you if you passively wait for it. Often times you must chase after it. The question is how.

Need help with that? I got you.

Start small. Try volunteering at a place where you see a need. Find people who have similar interests as you and build community with them. Think deeply and honestly about what you uniquely contribute to the world and start aligning your goals with your values. Understand that this might be some of the hardest work you’ve done. But also know that I will be some of the most rewarding.

If you have not found your assignment yet there is no need to fret. It will come. Just be ready and fearless when you do.