Feeling tired? Try giving up your “purpose.”

Find your purpose. Your calling. Your destiny. Preferably yesterday.

Find your purpose. Your calling. Your destiny.

Preferably yesterday.

…and preferably with the kind of passion that makes it hard for you to shut up about it.

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The purpose-driven life is a powerful myth. The bestselling kind. It promises clarity, direction, and a straight path to meaning. 

Perhaps you learned about purpose from one of the most influential books of the early 21st century, Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life. Published in 2002, it was a friendly paperback (and staple of every local free library) that sold over 50 million copies and tapped into a deep cultural longing for meaning and direction. 

It was a simple message: create a purpose-driven life. Make sure you’re not missing the point of your existence. Find deeper meaning in worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and mission (which is, frankly, quite nice, and I am now pausing to give the book a very thorough head pat for that). The argument took on a life of its own and soon the culture was riding a wave of “40 Days of Purpose” campaigns. (The President of Rwanda even declared them to be a “Purpose Driven Nation.”)

But now let’s talk about how even a good purpose can go wrong. 

Suddenly, it wasn’t enough to live—you had to live purposefully. 

What started as a church-based movement quickly spilled into broader cultural waters, saturating everything from business seminars to Instagram captions. The language of “purpose” became a kind of secular gospel—echoed by TED Talks, graduation speeches, and startup manifestos. Suddenly, it wasn’t just faith communities asking, “What on earth am I here for?” but also entrepreneurs, influencers, and everyday hustlers, all convinced that their lives needed a singular, world-changing mission.

The message dovetailed perfectly with the American bootstrap ethos:

If you just dig deep enough, hustle hard enough, and align your passions with your calling, you’ll find your unique reason for being—and you’ll be unstoppable.

Purpose became not just a spiritual quest, but a social expectation, a badge of honor, and, for some, a source of anxiety. In a culture obsessed with optimization and significance, The Purpose Driven Life didn’t just ride the wave—it helped create it, making “living on purpose” feel like the only way to truly live.

Suddenly everything had to matter. 

“Isn’t it enough to have a job?” you might ask. 

It is not. 

The purpose-driven mindset marks a sharp departure from the historic view of work, where employment was often seen as a means of survival or stability, not a calling or source of existential fulfillment.

The rise of the “purpose-driven” ethos has shifted the expectation: now, meaning is often sought directly through employment, with the language of vocation and calling—once reserved for volunteer or religious service—increasingly applied to paid work.

But this relentless search for purpose has a cost. As the boundaries between work, identity, and meaning blur, the pressure to find fulfillment in every aspect of life can become overwhelming. When every activity must be infused with significance, even leisure and rest risk being recast as opportunities for self-optimization.

We’re not just working differently. We’re volunteering differently. For decades after World War II, roughly one-quarter of North Americans served as long-term volunteers in local charities, churches, or civic associations. They were lifers who expected to build a web of meaning and community far outside what they were paid for. This is no longer the case; now, volunteerism attracts fewer people, and many of those who do show up are intent on matching their unpaid work with their larger sense of purpose.¹

As fewer people engage in service outside their jobs, the pressure for work itself to supply all of life’s meaning has only intensified, reflecting a deep cultural transformation in how purpose is pursued and understood.

Yet, the myth of the singular, all-consuming purpose can be as paralyzing as it is inspiring. For many, the search for “the one thing” leads not to clarity, but to anxiety and self-doubt—as if failing to uncover a grand calling means living a lesser life.

Ironically, in our quest for purpose, we may have lost sight of the quieter, cumulative forms of meaning found in ordinary routines, relationships, and small acts of service.

Perhaps it’s time to question whether life must always be driven by a singular purpose—or whether embracing a patchwork of smaller, shifting purposes might offer a more humane and sustainable path to fulfillment.

After all, history shows that meaning is often discovered in hindsight—not through a predetermined plan, but by responding to the needs and opportunities that arise along the way.

In a culture that prizes purpose as a commodity, maybe the most radical act is to value presence, adaptability, and connection over the relentless pursuit of a single, world-changing mission.

Behind some of this drive to find our “vocation” (and, let’s be honest, to tell people that everything happens for a reason) is a longing for meaning. We’re hardwired to make meaning, after all. It’s why some people suggest that meaning-making could be the sixth stage of grief (I’m looking at you, Kübler-Ross). It doesn’t sit right with us when things feel pointless—our pain, our time, or even our big, beautiful dreams.

But what about those of us who don't feel “purposed” by our jobs? 

The fact is that most Americans don’t have jobs that fulfill a higher calling. They stand at a drill press or behind a counter; they push electronic paper around and fill in invoices. They are providing for their family and that is enough. (And taking care of families is not simply earning money. It’s hours and hours of caregiving. One in five Americans is engaged in physically caregiving for a family member and, in Canada, there are twice that number.)²³⁴

The problem with “purpose” is that it seems to ask everyone not simply to do hard things – but to be basking in gratitude while doing it. Isn’t this rich and fulfilling? Isn’t this work the very marrow of the universe?  

Our hunger to find our purpose has left us purpose-weary.

We keep praying for God’s grand, prosperous plan to reveal itself—“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord in Jeremiah 29:11, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Don’t get too attached to this verse for your next big career move. It wasn’t written with your college decision or your inspirational life goals in mind. But I’ll leave the exegetical heavy lifting to my Duke colleague Ellen Davis.)⁵

Purpose-hunger promises us a life overflowing with meaning. But all too often, it delivers anxiety, self-doubt, and the nagging shame that we’re somehow failing to live our "Best Life Now." When everything is supposed to matter, it starts to feel less like a mission and more like a burden we’re too tired to carry.

So what happens if we set that all down?

That’s the question my friend Liz wants us to ask. 

Elizabeth Gilbert, patron saint of all things creativity, sat down with me for a live event at Duke University. And she took us to task, dismantling the myth that we are what we do. That what we do has to matter in some existential way, always. That we have to know the reasons for our being before we do anything.

What if instead, we celebrated For No Reason Season, as my beloved sister, writer, and creativity coach Maria Bowler invites us into. For No Reason Season encourages us to create in a way that doesn’t have to be monetized or maximized or marketed. But creativity for its own sake. The thing you do because it makes you feel alive or lets you feel free inside your body or helps you see something new. Creativity because it feels good to try.

My friend Will Willimon is the best at this. Yes, he is an author of literally one hundred books and a former bishop and a brilliant Duke professor and a wonderful friend. But is he also an obscure hobbyist? Yes. Yes, he is. He made this snake out of wood for me. What’s the reason? I’m not sure. I may never know.

Aforementioned woodcarved snake by the inimitable Will Willimon

(Will also has a lot to say on the topic of vocation: “The question is not ‘What do I want to do with me?’ but rather ‘Which God am I worshiping and how is that God having his way with me?’”—I can’t recommend his memoir Accidental Preacher enough.)

You may have heard me talk about my son’s latest version of this—hole digging. When I shared about his new “hobby” on Instagram, I discovered THIS IS NOT UNCOMMON. So many of us have little human voles in our yards. One of you even said that this is essentially what gardening is. Digging a hole. Filling it with something. Genius.

He’s still digging.

Maybe this is what it means to make peace with the limits of our meaning-making. To stop demanding that every act, every season, every job, every hobby, every suffering be redeemed with a higher purpose. Sometimes we find meaning, and it is wonderful. What grace. But a lot of times, we fumble around in the dark, hoping for something more. 

May it be enough to say a moment was fulfilling. This mattered to me.

Watch my full conversation with Liz Gilbert:

Or listen on Spotify or Apple.

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If this has resonated with you and you want to go deeper, here are a few places to start:

• Listen to my conversation with my brilliant sister Maria Bowler or follow her on Instagram for more kick-in-the-pants creativity. 

• Read my very favorite book on creativity, BIG MAGIC by Liz Gilbert. 

• Get started today by diving into Suleika Jaouad’s daily journaling practice through The Book of Alchemy. 

• If you want to think more about what it means to be called by God, listen to my conversation with Will Willimon. 

• Or, I don’t know, grab a shovel and start digging a hole in the yard. (Sorry in advance to your neighbors or Homeowners’ Association.)

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Okay, your turn. What purpose-hunger do you need to set down for now? Does it seem possible?

1

Scientia Global. “The Decline of Volunteering in America: Economic Factors and Rural-Urban Differences.” Scientia Global, accessed July 9, 2025. https://www.scientia.global/the-decline-of-volunteering-in-america-economic-factors-and-rural-urban-differences/.

2

The Living Planner. “Caregiving in 2025.” The Living Planner, accessed July 9, 2025. https://thelivingplanner.com/caregiving-in-2025/.

3

Population Reference Bureau. “Fact Sheet: Trends in Family Care for Older Americans.” Population Reference Bureau, accessed July 9, 2025. https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-trends-in-family-care-for-older-americans/.

4

Statistics Canada. “Unpaid Work: Distribution and Differences.” The Daily, April 2, 2024. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240402/dq240402d-eng.htm.

5

For more on the Old Testament prophets: Davis, Ellen F. Opening Israel’s Scriptures. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.