Your Purpose by Age in the Destiny Matrix: 20 to 40, 40 to 60 and After 60

A Destiny Matrix chart does not give you a single purpose. It gives you three, one for each major stage of adult life. The idea is that what you are here to do changes as you grow: first you find yourself, then you find your place among others, and later you find what you leave behind. This guide explains the three stages and how to read the numbers in your chart.

If you do not have your numbers yet, calculate them with the Destiny Matrix calculator. The three purposes are listed with their energy names.

The three stages

• From about 20 to 40: your personal purpose. This is the stage of finding yourself, of trying things and learning what is truly yours.
• From about 40 to 60: your social purpose. This is your place among people, the way you contribute to a family, a group, a work or a community.
• After 60: your spiritual purpose. This is what you leave behind, the quality of life and the wisdom that you pass on.

How the numbers are found

Your personal purpose is built from two numbers: the sky, which is your month plus your karmic task, and the earth, which is your day plus your year number. Added together, they give the personal purpose. Your social purpose comes from the male line and the female line, each of which is the sum of two of the ancestral points around the chart, and the two lines are added together. Your spiritual purpose is the sum of the personal and the social purpose. As always, any sum above 22 is reduced by adding its digits, and the calculator does all of it for you.

How to read each stage

Take the energy for each stage and read its page, looking for the section about purpose by age. The Magician as a personal purpose is about finding yourself through trying and making. The same Magician as a social purpose is about leading and teaching. As a spiritual purpose it is about passing on skill. The energy stays the same, and the way it is lived changes with the stage.

A worked example

For July 14, 1991 the month is 7 and the karmic task is 5, so the sky is 12. The day is 14 and the year number is 20, which adds to 34 and reduces to 7, so the earth is 7. The personal purpose is 12 plus 7, which is 19, the Sun. The male and female lines both come to 10, and together they give a social purpose of 20, Judgement. The spiritual purpose is 19 plus 20, which is 39 and reduces to 12, the Hanged Man.

Read as a path, it could sound like this: first learn to be visible and to enjoy what you do (the Sun), then find and follow a calling in your place among people (Judgement), and later learn to see life from a different angle and to let go of what you cannot control (the Hanged Man). That is only one reading of three numbers, and each person lives them differently.

Where you are now

Locate yourself in the three stages. If you are in your thirties, the personal purpose is the one in front of you. If you are in your fifties, the social purpose is the active one, and the spiritual purpose is coming. The stage that you are in is not the only one that matters. People often begin to feel the next stage a few years before it officially begins.

Questions to ask for each purpose

• Personal purpose: what am I curious about, what do I keep returning to, what feels like mine?
• Social purpose: whom am I here to help, what do I want to build with others, what do people ask me for?
• Spiritual purpose: what do I want to be remembered for, and what do I want to let go of?

If you are under 20 or over 60

Everyone has all three numbers from birth, so you can read them at any age. If you are younger than 20, the personal purpose describes what is coming and the qualities that you can already practice. If you are past 60, the spiritual purpose is the active one, and the earlier two are a record of what you have already lived. It is often rewarding to read the earlier purposes in hindsight and notice where they showed up.

Do the stages change sharply at 40 and 60?

No. The ages are approximate, and most people feel the shift gradually. A few years before 40 you may notice that the goals of your twenties and thirties no longer satisfy you. That is often the social purpose beginning to speak. Treat the ages as a rough guide and use your own experience to decide which stage you are in.

When the three purposes do not fit your life

Sometimes the numbers will seem far from your daily reality. That is normal, because they describe a direction and not a job description. A purpose can be lived through work, through family, through art or through the way you treat people. If a number seems to ask for something you cannot imagine, read it as a quality to grow, such as courage or patience, rather than as a career.

A personal Soulé Code reading explains all three purposes in depth, along with the rest of your chart. And for the other main positions, read the guide to reading your chart.