Comfort, Purpose, & the Power of Service
For much of my life, I believed fulfilment was something you earned by building comfort.
A good income. A warm house. Holidays that said you’d made it. Comfort was the proof that the struggle had been worth it.
But comfort, I’ve learned, can be the most seductive prison of all. It soothes the very instincts that once made us brave. It whispers, stay here, it’s safe, just when something deeper is asking, what are you here for?
The Illusion of Arrival
I spent years chasing a kind of arrival—financial, social, emotional. I wanted the applause that tells you you’ve succeeded.
The trouble is, applause fades quickly, and when it does, the silence can feel like failure.
I’d built businesses, earned money, worn the right suits. Yet the more I achieved, the more I felt the foundations cracking beneath me. Success without purpose corrodes quietly. It doesn’t explode; it evaporates.
When everything eventually collapsed—career, marriage, certainty—it forced a reckoning that no boardroom or therapist could postpone. I had to ask myself what any of it was for. And the answer didn’t come from another deal or title. It came from watching the smallest acts of kindness in the unlikeliest places: a nurse sharing tea, a homeless man sharing wine, a stranger who saw the person, not the problem.
What Lady Edwina Grosvenor Taught Me
Lady Edwina Grosvenor once said that real privilege isn’t what you keep; it’s what you do with what you have. Those words stayed with me because they dismantled everything I thought I knew about success.
I had spent years believing privilege was something to apologise for or conceal. But she reframed it as stewardship. Privilege, she said, isn’t guilt; it’s responsibility. If you’ve been given resources, networks, education, or opportunity, you’ve also been given the duty to use them for good.
That idea changed me. It helped me see that the real crisis we face in Britain isn’t just economic or political; it’s moral. Too many of us have been trained to look after ourselves, not each other. And yet the people who seem to have the least often give the most.
Then I came across another line of hers—one that crystallised my own experience perfectly:
“The comfort zone is a lovely place, but nothing grows from there.”
She’s right. Growth rarely happens when we’re safe, well-fed, and unchallenged. It happens in the uncomfortable spaces—the hospital ward, the broken business, the sleepless night when everything you thought you were is stripped away. It’s there, in the rawness, that empathy begins.
Empath was founded from that truth: we don’t grow by avoiding pain, but by transforming it.
A friend and the Question of Life’s Direction
An old friend, an old love and an art curator at heart, once spoke passionately about wanting to live a life of art and advocacy. I think about her sometimes—how she stands at a crossroads many of us recognise. One road leads to a quiet, comfortable life; the other, to a more uncertain one filled with risk, art, and purpose.
It’s not really her dilemma alone—it’s ours. Comfort or calling. Safety or significance. There’s no shame in choosing stability; the world needs caretakers and nurturers. But those who choose the harder road—the artists, reformers, carers, campaigners—carry something sacred. They remind the rest of us what freedom is for.
Here question became mine: What will you do with what you’ve been given?
From Breakdown to Breakthrough
When I was sectioned for months in a psychiatric hospital, I thought my life was over. In truth, it was beginning again. Illness stripped me of titles and pretence, leaving only what was real: vulnerability, humanity, and the thin thread of empathy that connects us all.
It was there, surrounded by people society had forgotten, that I started to see what recovery really meant. Not just survival, but renewal. Not just medication, but meaning. Everyone on that ward wanted the same thing: to feel seen, to feel safe, to feel useful again.
That insight became the seed for Empath.
The Birth of Empath
Empath Centres were born from the conviction that healing and purpose are inseparable. You can’t rebuild a life with medication alone; you need connection, structure, dignity, and belief.
We built the model around six pillars—sport, nutrition, creativity, financial literacy, career skills, and workplace integration—because recovery isn’t a single-issue problem. It’s a human problem. A person who learns to cook healthy food, exercise again, manage money, and find creative expression doesn’t just recover; they start to live.
Empath is where mental-health care meets life-skills education. Where art meets employment. Where people rediscover their own agency.
The goal isn’t charity; it’s empowerment. The quiet miracle happens when someone who once felt broken begins helping someone else to heal.
The Real Measure of Success
After losing almost everything, I stopped measuring success in numbers. I began to measure it in impact.
How many people leave an Empath programme with confidence?
How many families see a loved one thrive again?
How many communities regain pride through shared purpose?
I realised that wealth, stripped of meaning, is empty. But meaning, even without wealth, is abundant. You can build an empire that feeds the ego, or a movement that feeds the soul.
The Middle-Class Mirage
There’s a truth I’ve come to see about our culture: the middle class is often the most trapped. They polish cars, not consciences; they mistake busyness for purpose. I say this with compassion, because I lived that way. We chase perfection in our homes and appearances because it’s safer than facing what scares us: the question of why we’re here.
But when everything I owned slipped through my hands, I discovered something paradoxical. Losing comfort didn’t destroy me—it clarified me. It taught me that the currency of life isn’t money or reputation; it’s connection and contribution.
Service as Freedom
The highest form of freedom isn’t doing whatever you want. It’s dedicating yourself to something that matters. Service isn’t servitude; it’s self-respect in motion.
When Lady Edwina talks about her work in prisons, she’s not seeking praise; she’s practising liberation. Helping others is how she stays free.
And that’s what Empath offers—a space where service and healing meet. Whether you’re a nurse, a chef, a teacher, or a CEO, service equalises us. It’s the one currency that never loses value.
Purpose and the Future
People sometimes ask whether I miss the old life—the money, the deals, the thrill of the chase. I don’t. What I have now is richer. I have a mission that keeps me awake for the right reasons. I have work that connects, not isolates. I have a vision that will outlive me.
Empath isn’t about building a brand; it’s about building belonging. It’s proof that you can turn pain into architecture, illness into insight, failure into foundation.
And I want it to stand as a reminder: no one is beyond repair. With the right support, every human being can reclaim dignity, creativity, and joy.
A Personal Promise
When I look back at the journey—from trading floors to hospital wards to this new beginning—I see a single thread running through it all: the search for meaning.
The world doesn’t need more perfection; it needs more compassion.
So I made a promise to myself: whatever success I rebuild, it must serve others. If I ever become wealthy again, it will be through creating jobs, homes, and opportunities—never speculation alone. Wealth should circulate like blood, not pool like water.
Closing Reflection
My friend's crossroads still lingers in my mind, not because of nostalgia but because it symbolises choice. Do we want the easy life or the meaningful one? The quiet comfort or the creative fire? Every person, family, and institution faces that question.
At Empath, we choose purpose. We choose the sometimes-uncomfortable work of change. Because comfort protects the body, but purpose protects the soul.
If there’s one lesson I’d pass on to anyone reading this—whether you’re an investor, a policymaker, or someone rebuilding after hardship—it’s this: use what you have for something larger than yourself. That’s where peace lives. That’s where healing begins.
The world doesn’t need more people chasing comfort; it needs more people courageous enough to live for meaning.
That’s why we built Empath. And that’s why the work is only just beginning.
Jeremy Dixon is the founder of Empath Centres, a social enterprise redefining recovery through sport, nutrition, creativity, and purpose.