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Do It on Purpose

Catherine Addor
Aug 26
4 min read

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” ~ Dolly Parton


There are celebrity deaths that make you sad because you loved the music, the movies, or the memories attached to them.


Then there are people whose passing feels like we lost something bigger.


Dolly Parton feels bigger.


Maybe because she was one of those increasingly rare people who seemed to belong to everybody without ever changing herself to belong to anybody.


Years ago, I listened to the podcast Dolly Parton’s America, and if you have not yet, I cannot recommend it enough. The premise is fascinating: in a country that can seemingly disagree about absolutely everything, why do so many people agree about Dolly Parton?


Nine episodes later, I am not sure there is one answer.


Maybe that is the answer.


Dolly could sit comfortably among people who might not sit comfortably with one another.


Country music fans loved her. People who would never willingly listen to country music loved her. People of faith claimed her. The LGBTQ+ community embraced her. Working-class women saw themselves in her songs. Feminists found plenty to admire in a woman who didn't particularly care for the label. Appalachia saw someone who never seemed embarrassed by where she came from, even after she became famous enough to go anywhere.


She somehow managed to be completely, unmistakably herself without requiring everyone around her to be the same.


That may be one of the things I admire most about her.


She didn't seem to confuse conviction with confrontation.


She knew who she was.


She did it on purpose.


The hair was on purpose.


The rhinestones were on purpose.


The accent she never tried to lose was on purpose.


The humor was on purpose.


So were the business decisions.


The songwriting.


The boundaries.


The generosity.


The decision to take the very things people might underestimate about her and refuse to apologize for any of them.


There is something incredibly powerful about a woman who understands exactly how the world sees her and decides she gets to define herself anyway.


If Dolly's legacy stopped at the music, the movies, the wigs and the rhinestones, she would still have been extraordinary.


It didn't.


She used what she built.


That matters to me.


In 1995, Dolly started the Imagination Library in her home county in Tennessee because her father could not read or write. She wanted children to grow up with books in their homes, so the program began mailing books to young children free of charge.


It grew. And grew. And grew.


Eventually, what began in one Tennessee county reached children across multiple countries and put hundreds of millions of books into their hands.


Think about that for a minute.


Not a gala.


Not a scholarship for three people that photographs well.


Books arriving at children's houses.


Month after month.


Year after year.


She also responded when her community needed her. After the devastating 2016 wildfires in Tennessee, her My People Fund ultimately distributed millions of dollars to families who had lost their homes.


During COVID, she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, funding that supported research related to the Moderna vaccine.


Again and again, there was a pattern.


See a need.


Figure out what you can do.


Do it.


Maybe that is why “Find out who you are and do it on purpose” feels less like a clever Dolly Parton quote and more like the operating instructions for her life.


She didn't just tell people to dream.


She helped make it possible for somebody else to dream.


I think there is an important distinction there.


We spend a lot of time talking about finding our purpose as though it were something hidden somewhere we are supposed to discover.


Maybe purpose is less mysterious than that.


Maybe purpose is what happens when we figure out what matters to us and consistently behave as if it matters.


If you believe children deserve opportunity, put books in their hands.


If you believe people deserve dignity, treat them with dignity.


If your community is hurting, help.


If you have influence, use it.


If you have resources, share them.


If you have a voice, decide what you want that voice to do in the world.


Perhaps most importantly, don't spend your life trying to become palatable enough for everyone else.


There will always be someone who thinks you are too much.


Too loud.


Too ambitious.


Too opinionated.


Too sparkly.


Dolly built an entire life out of being too much and somehow made all of that "too much" look exactly right.


Today, her family has asked that, instead of flowers, people honor her by supporting Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.


I can't think of a more appropriate tribute.


Buy a child a book.


Read to someone.


Support a library.


Give to a literacy program.


Help a young person discover something they are good at.


Open a door for someone who hasn't had as many doors opened for them.


Give quietly when you can.


Show up for your community.


And maybe honor Dolly in one other way.


Stop waiting for permission to be the person you already know you are.


Find out who you are.


Do it on purpose.


And then use whatever comes with it to leave something good behind.


That's a pretty remarkable legacy.


And a pretty good way to live.


Unscripted.



P.S. If Dolly has meant something to you, here are two ways to spend a little more time with her legacy.


Listen to Dolly Parton’s America. Even if you aren't a country music person, trust me on this one. It is about so much more than Dolly. It is about identity, belonging, America, and how one woman somehow managed to create common ground in a country that doesn't find much of it.



And if you want to honor Dolly by helping continue the work she cared so deeply about, learn more about Dolly Parton's Imagination Library and how you can support getting books into the hands of children:



Listen. Read. Give a kid a book.


That feels like a pretty good way to say thank you, Dolly.



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