Purpose is an elusive thing. Some wake up full of vigor ready for the day ahead with clear goals and intentions, with purpose. Others, however, wake up and lie in bed all day, unmotivated and wish for their own deaths. I believe this to be a problem with many things but one of them being purpose.
Purpose may not be what it is that drives people to get on with their lives, or a lack thereof, take them. What is really at fault is an inability to see the person in respect's future. If you cannot see yourself having a future, whether it be the one you dreamed of, the one you envisiged or one at all. Then you are at the mercy of "purpose".
Purpose, then, is not a starting point but a consequence. We often treat it as something one must discover, as if it were buried beneath the surface of the self, waiting to be unearthed. But perhaps purpose is not found at all-perhaps it is projected. It emerges only when a person can imagine themselves continuing, becoming, changing. When that imagined future collapses, purpose does not vanish because it was never there to begin with; it simply never had the chance to form.
This places us closer to the existentialists than we might be comfortable admitting. If the future self is blurred or absent, the present self begins to feel unreal, weightless. Days lose their narrative thread. Without a story that extends forward, actions feel arbitrary, and effort seems unjustifiable. It is not that life lacks meaning, but that meaning requires time to unfold-and time requires belief in tomorrow.
Ironically, this suggests that purpose is not what saves us from despair; rather, it is hope, however fragile or undefined. Not hope in a specific outcome or dream, but hope in continuation itself. To believe that there will be a “later” version of oneself-one capable of understanding, forgiving, or reinterpreting the present-is to loosen the grip of purpose over one’s worth. In this sense, purpose becomes less of a demand and more of a byproduct of endurance.
Perhaps the task, then, is not to ask “What is my purpose?” but “Can I imagine myself still here?” If the answer is even faintly yes, purpose may follow on its own, quietly and without ceremony. And if it does not, that may be acceptable too. After all, to exist without a clear purpose is not a failure of life-it may simply be life before it has finished explaining itself.