The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The work of life is to develop it. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.

The saying frames a human life as a three-stage arc: self-discovery (identifying one’s distinctive capacities), disciplined cultivation (turning raw talent into practiced ability), and outward contribution (using that ability in service of others). Its rhetoric turns “gift” into both an inner endowment and a moral obligation: what matters is not merely having potential, but refining it through work and then translating it into generosity, creativity, or care. The progression also implies that meaning is relational—found not in private fulfillment alone but in what one gives. Read this way, it blends self-actualization with an ethic of responsibility.