Let’s talk about something that keeps me up at night. It’s this giant, looming question that feels like it’s judging me from the corner of the room every time I’m just trying to watch a dumb video on the internet.
The question is: What is your purpose?
It feels like a question you should have a good answer for. But most of the time, my answer is a frantic, internal scream.
We live in a world that’s OBSESSED with purpose. Find your passion! Live your dream! Make your mark! The pressure is immense. It’s like there’s a cosmic sign-up sheet for a Grand, Meaningful Life, and if you don’t put your name down for something epic like “Cure a Disease” or “Reinvent Education,” you’re doing it wrong.
But what if your “purpose” right now is just… to eat a really good sandwich? Or to get your friend to laugh so hard they snort? Can you be genuinely, deeply happy without a capitalized, bolded, underlined Life Purpose?
This question sent me down a rabbit hole, and I discovered that this whole debate is basically a turf war between two competing characters in my brain. One is an Architect, obsessed with building a legacy. The other is a Gardener, content with cultivating the present.
The Two Minds In Your Head
Character #1: The Architect
The Architect is the part of your brain that thinks like a Mountain Climber. He’s not interested in fleeting pleasure. That’s for children. He’s interested in Eudaimonia, a fancy Greek word for “flourishing,” which he defines as conquering the summit.
To The Architect, happiness isn’t something you chase; it’s the natural result of a job well done. It’s the validation you feel after building something monumental, overcoming a great challenge, or achieving a massive goal. He believes humans are like acorns. An acorn’s “purpose” is to become a mighty oak tree. Your purpose is to become the best version of yourself—and to him, “best” means “biggest.”
He’s the voice in your head that says:
- “Are you really living up to your potential?”
- “What will your legacy be?”
- “Watching another cat video is not going to help you contribute to society.”
He thinks a life without a grand purpose is like a ship without a rudder—adrift, aimless, and ultimately, a failure. For him, happiness without a monumental achievement is just a hollow distraction. He lives in the future, in a state of perpetual deferment, convinced that joy is a milestone to be reached, not a resource to be cultivated.
Character #2: The Gardener (The Hedonist)
The Gardener runs on Hedonia. “Hedonic” happiness is all about feeling good. It’s about maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, right here, right now. It’s about finding joy in the process, not just the outcome.
The Gardener doesn’t care about your five-year plan or your legacy. He cares about the warmth of the sun on your skin, the taste of food grown with your own hands, the joy of a good conversation, and the comfort of a cozy bed. He finds immense satisfaction in the simple, sensory experiences of being alive.
The Gardener’s philosophy is simple:
- “Ooh, this is nice.”
- “Can we do more of this?”
- “Why are we worrying about the summit when there’s a garden to tend to right now?”
To The Gardener, The Architect is a killjoy who lives in a state of chronic dissatisfaction. Who overthinks everything. Why build a skyscraper of potential when you can be perfectly happy in a comfy little hut of simple pleasures? Why spend your life in a joyless, anxiety-ridden climb when you can be perfectly happy cultivating your own small patch of the world?
A Quick History of the Purpose Problem
For most of human history, this debate didn’t really exist because The Architect and The Gardener were on the same team.
Let’s take a time machine.
The Caveman Era: Your purpose was brutally simple: Don’t Die. Finding a bush full of berries was a massive win for both departments. The Architect was like, “Excellent, we have fulfilled our purpose of acquiring calories to continue our genetic lineage!” and The Gardener was like, “YUM, BERRIES!” They were in perfect harmony.
The Ancient/Medieval Era: For most people, your purpose was handed to you. You were a farmer, a blacksmith, a soldier. Your purpose was to do your job, be a good member of your community, and (in many cases) follow your religion to secure a good spot in the afterlife. The Architect’s blueprint was basically pre-printed by society. The Gardener could find joy within that structure.
The Modern Era: And then… there’s us. We live in an age of unprecedented freedom and prosperity. The old structures have dissolved. The basic survival purpose is (for many of us) taken care of. Suddenly, the blueprint is blank. The Architect is freaking out, handing you a pen and screaming, “DRAW SOMETHING! ANYTHING! IT HAS TO BE A MASTERPIECE!”
We have the luxury and the curse of defining our own purpose, and it’s a huge amount of pressure. This is where the real turf war begins, and to understand it, we need to introduce one more character.
The Third Faction: The Stoic Judge
The Judge isn’t a department; it’s the courthouse itself. It’s the conscious, reasoning part of your mind that observes the frantic shouting between The Architect and The Gardener. The Judge operates on a different principle, one borrowed from the Stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius.
The Judge knows that both The Architect and The Gardener have valid points, but they are both terrible at running the show on their own.
- A life run only by The Architect is a joyless, anxiety-ridden climb up a ladder that may not even be leaning against the right wall.
- A life run only by The Gardener is a short-sighted chase for the next dopamine hit, which often leads to regret and ruin.
The Judge’s job is not to pick a winner. It’s to listen to both sides and make a wise ruling. The Judge asks questions like:
- “Is this grand plan making us miserable right now?”
- “Is this immediate pleasure aligned with our deeper values?”
- “Can we build something meaningful and enjoy the process?”
The Judge’s wisdom is that happiness is found not in achieving the grand purpose or indulging in every pleasure, but in the quality of your judgment from moment to moment.
So, Can The Gardener Win? Can You Be Happy Without a Blueprint?
This is the core of the question. Can a life of simple, hedonic joys—a life guided by The Gardener—be a truly happy one?
The answer, filtered through The Judge, is: It depends on how you frame it.
If “purpose” means a single, grand, world-changing mission, then absolutely, yes, you can be happy without it. Many of the happiest people I know are not trying to change the world. They are master “Gardener” managers, guided by the quiet wisdom of their inner Judge. They are deeply engaged in their hobbies, they cherish their relationships, they contribute to their families and communities in small, meaningful ways.
Their “purpose” isn’t one big thing; it’s a mosaic of a thousand little things. It’s a “portfolio of purpose.”
- The purpose of being a good, present parent.
- The purpose of mastering the craft of woodworking.
- The purpose of being the friend someone can always count on.
- The purpose of simply appreciating the beauty of the world and living with integrity.
From this perspective, maybe The Architect doesn’t need a single, giant blueprint. Maybe The Judge’s job is to task The Architect with designing a life where The Gardener gets to have a consistently good time in a way that feels right and sustainable.
A life of pure, unguided hedonism—just chasing the next high—is The Gardener running rampant without any supervision. That leads to a crash. But a life of pure, joyless striving—only focusing on the grand, distant goal—is The Architect locking The Gardener in a closet. That leads to burnout.
The Gardening Architect: A Practical Philosophy
Our culture presents these as a binary choice: you are either a driven Architect or a content Gardener. You are either changing the world or you are “settling.” This is a false and destructive dichotomy.
The truth is, you need both. A life run only by The Architect is a joyless, anxiety-ridden climb up a ladder that may not even be leaning against the right wall. A life run only by The Gardener can lack direction and the deep satisfaction that comes from building something lasting.
The secret is to find a balance. It is to hold a vision for the future, but to build it with the presence and mindfulness of a Gardener. It is to find joy not just in the imagined completion of the cathedral, but in the daily act of laying each stone.
Here’s how you do it:
- Define Your Purpose as a Practice, Not a Destination.
Instead of “My purpose is to become a CEO,” try “My purpose is to lead with compassion and clarity every day.” Instead of “My purpose is to write a bestselling novel,” try “My purpose is to write with honesty and courage for an hour each morning.” This reframes your Architect’s grand goal into a Gardener’s daily act, allowing you to succeed today, not in ten years. - Build a “Scoreboard” That You Control.
The Architect’s scoreboard is owned by the world: sales figures, job titles, follower counts. The Gardening Architect builds their own. This is the Scoreboard Philosophy: you define your own game and keep your own score. What if your “win” for the day wasn’t closing a deal, but having a truly present conversation with your child? What if it wasn’t clearing your inbox, but the courage it took to have a difficult conversation? You get to decide what counts. This is how you reclaim your sense of worth from the fickle monster of external validation. You are no longer a pawn in someone else’s game. You are the master of your own. - Practice “Structured Savoring.”
The Architect sees free time as a void to be filled with more productive work. The Gardening Architect schedules moments of pure, unproductive presence. This could be a daily walk without a phone, a weekly “artist date” as Julia Cameron suggests, or simply ten minutes of silence. You are not “doing nothing”; you are actively cultivating your ability to live. - Embrace the “And.”
The Architect lives in a world of “or.” “I can pursue my career, or I can have a rich family life.” “I can be ambitious, or I can be content.” The Gardening Architect lives in the world of “and.” You can be ambitious and content. You can have a long-term vision and find joy in the present moment. You can work towards a better future and appreciate the beauty of the life you have now. Reject the tyranny of “or.” - Conduct a “Dream Audit.”
A single-minded purpose can eclipse other dreams. Periodically, ask yourself: What smaller dreams have I deferred in service of the big one? Is there a language I wanted to learn, an instrument I wanted to play, a relationship I wanted to deepen? Make space for these. A life is a garden of many different plants, not a monoculture of a single crop.
A Real-World Case Study: The French Neighbor
This brings to mind a story a friend of mine told me, which gets to the heart of this whole question.
When he was living in France, he had a neighbor—a woman living a quiet life. She wasn’t wealthy, but she had enough. She had no job, not because she couldn’t work, but because she didn’t need to. Her days were her own. He told me she seemed perfectly, genuinely happy.
What did she do? Mostly, she sat in her garden. She would sip her coffee, look at her flowers, and watch the trees. She wasn’t striving, she wasn’t building an empire, she wasn’t chasing a grand passion.
My friend’s question was the same one we’re asking: “Did she have a purpose? Did I misread the situation? What did I miss?”
At first glance, the Architect in our brains would have a full-blown meltdown looking at this scene. No grand project? No career? No visible legacy she’s actively building? It looks like a life without a blueprint.
But this is where we’ve been defining “purpose” all wrong. The neighbor’s life wasn’t a victory for aimless pleasure; it was a masterclass in being a Gardening Architect.
Her life wasn’t lacking purpose; it was built on a different, more subtle kind of purpose. Her purpose wasn’t achieving, it was appreciating. Her goal wasn’t to build a skyscraper, but to fully inhabit her own quiet, beautiful world. Each sip of coffee, each moment spent admiring a flower—these weren’t acts of idleness. They were acts of profound, deliberate presence.
What my friend missed wasn’t some secret, hidden ambition. He was seeing the purpose itself, but he didn’t recognize it because it wasn’t loud or external. It was the quiet, powerful purpose of a person who has decided that the meaning of her life is to savor the experience of being alive.
This woman hadn’t given up on a blueprint; she had a blueprint so refined it was invisible to the outside world. It was a blueprint for contentment, built with the daily, joyful practice of a gardener.
The Synthesis: The Journey is the Home
The ultimate philosophical truth here is that “purpose” is not some external thing you find under a rock. It’s something you decide to value.
True, deep, and sustained happiness seems to come from a peace treaty between the Architect and the Gardener. It’s about using The Architect’s vision to design a life, a structure, and a set of values that allow The Gardener to thrive. It’s about recognizing that meaning isn’t just found in the monumental, but in the mundane.
A life can be profoundly purposeful without a “Purpose.” It can be rich with meaning, even if that meaning is quiet, personal, and composed of small, everyday acts of love, kindness, and engagement.
The goal is not to arrive at the finish line, breathless and exhausted, with a life of deferred joy in your wake. The goal is to cross that line having already lived a thousand lives in the moments along the way—having savored the struggle, cherished the process, and understood that the greatest purpose of all is not to achieve, but to fully and truly live.
So maybe the next time your inner Architect starts yelling at you about your lack of a grand purpose, you can let The Judge step in. Let it hear the arguments from both sides. The verdict will likely be that building a life of meaningful moments is a worthy blueprint, and that enjoying a really good sandwich can, and absolutely should, be part of the plan. Case dismissed.
