On the Weight of Purpose
And the simple freedom of enjoying your life.
There is a question that haunts the modern world.
It’s in books and podcasts and on stages.
What is your purpose?
We are told it is the key. The thing we must find to unlock a meaningful life.
And so we search. We strive. We feel a constant, low-grade anxiety that we have not yet found our one true 'why'.
I was reading something recently that made me stop. A Substack piece by an author in Paris, reflecting on how the French don’t really share this obsession.
For them, the goal isn't necessarily to find purpose.
It is to experience joie de vivre. The joy of living.
The pleasure of a good meal. A long conversation. A walk with no destination. Time spent with people you love.
The focus is on the quality of life itself, not on a grand mission statement that life must serve.
It made me think about my own patterns.
The constant search for the next challenge. The deeply internalised idea that things must be difficult to be worthwhile.
What if that drive is a symptom of this same purpose-obsession?
And what if this endless quest for a singular, definable purpose is actually the thing that gets in the way of happiness?
What if we have made joy conditional? Something to be earned only after we have found our grand 'why'?
It feels like a quiet rebellion, then, to suggest something simpler.
To let go of the weight of a monumental purpose.
And to ask a different question entirely.
Is it enough, just to enjoy your life?