what if meaning isn’t something you find, but something you choose to give

against the idea of a grand life purpose

i’ve spent so much of my life believing there’s something i need to figure out. like there’s a secret door somewhere with all the answers waiting behind it. i don’t know who taught us this school, religion, society, maybe movies but we’ve been told that life has a point, a capital-P purpose, and it’s our job to discover it. and if we don’t, we’ve wasted something. we’ve failed. we’re behind.

i think i believed that for a long time that i was supposed to have a singular calling, some grand thing that would make my existence feel important. that maybe one day, i’d wake up, and there would be this glowing clarity like oh, okay, this is who i am, this is what i’m meant to do. i thought it would be handed to me, or revealed in some lightning-bolt moment. maybe in my twenties. or maybe after i finished college. or maybe when i published my first book. but the truth is, none of those things ever delivered that feeling. and the more i waited for it, the more disappointed i felt. like i was missing something everyone else had figured out.

but lately i’ve been wondering: what if there’s nothing to “get”? what if life isn’t this equation you solve, but more like a canvas you just… keep adding to. what if we’re not meant to find meaning as if it’s some fixed destination? what if we’re meant to give meaning to small things, to people we love, to things that make us feel alive in tiny, almost unremarkable ways? what if it’s not the purpose that gives the act its value, but the care you put into it?

sometimes i feel most alive when i’m not even doing anything impressive. like when i’m texting my best friend a long paragraph about my existential crisis, or when i make myself coffee at 2am and sit on the floor, just thinking. or when i write something that maybe no one will read, but it made me feel like myself for those ten minutes. or when i put on earrings even though i’m not going anywhere, just because it made me feel pretty. those things don’t look meaningful from the outside. but they feel like they matter.

and maybe that’s enough.

i think a lot of us are quietly exhausted from trying to live a significant life. we feel like if we’re not building an empire or changing the world, we’re wasting time. we compare our timelines to others, we measure ourselves against achievements, we wonder if we’re “doing enough.” but what if we’ve misunderstood what a meaningful life actually looks like? what if it’s not about having a legacy, or a perfectly sculpted career, or being known for something? what if it’s about who you become in the process of living? how you show up in relationships. how you create softness in hard moments. how you notice the sunset on your way back from a breakdown. how you take care of your friends when they can’t take care of themselves.

there are people who have changed my life just by being kind to me on one bad day. people whose names i don’t remember, but their presence gave me something to hold on to. was that their purpose? did they plan it? no. but it mattered. and i think maybe that’s what meaning is: not some singular huge thing, but a collage. something you make from leftovers from pain, and effort, and joy, and routine. and you don’t always see it clearly while it’s happening. but later, when you look back, you realize those small things were everything.

i think the pressure to “find yourself” is a little cruel, honestly. because what does that even mean? you are not buried treasure. you are not a product to be finalized. you are allowed to change. you are allowed to not know. you are allowed to make things matter even when they don’t look like they do on a CV. and if something lights you up even briefly, even softly maybe that’s enough reason to keep choosing it.

i used to feel like i had to justify everything. every choice had to be part of some long-term plan. every interest had to turn into a career. every relationship had to “make sense.” but now, i want to let go of that. i want to do things simply because they make me feel present. because they make me remember that i’m human. and that being human, with all its uncertainty and softness and mess, is maybe the most meaningful thing of all.

maybe we’re not meant to “find” meaning like a needle in a haystack. maybe we’re meant to give it gently, intentionally to the moments that move us. maybe we’re meant to build our lives like a scrapbook: full of strange little moments that don’t add up neatly, but together, feel like home.

and maybe that’s what we’ve been missing this whole time.

some things i know now (takeaways, if you will):

• you don’t need to find your meaning. you can choose it, shape it, handcraft it from the things you already care about.

• no one’s coming to hand you a scroll. life isn’t waiting to reveal itself. it’s already happening.

• you are not lost. you’re just in the middle of building something beautiful that might not make sense yet.

• the ordinary is sacred. it’s okay if your life doesn’t look “extraordinary” it still counts.

• there is no one final version of you. you get to rewrite your meaning, again and again