Purpose, passion, pleasure—what really moves us?
My friends and I found a table at a blissfully mellow bar on New Year's Eve. We had an hour until midnight, so we spent the time catching up. Inevitably, the question du jour went around the table: “Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?”
The general reaction was *shrug* “not really, I’m kinda over resolutions.” One person picked a thematic word for the year instead. I decided to run back the same “intention” from last year. One friend wrote a letter to her future self for the next New Year. (Which is a great idea I’m going to borrow.)
For many people, resolutions still hold a lot of weight and can spark reflection and motivation. For others, it’s a hopeful ideal quickly replaced with the guilt of no follow-through.
For me, our collective malaise about resolutions mirrored my disillusionment with other unfulfilled aspirations. Over the last few years, I’ve tried to structure my life around purpose, passion, or pleasure. I fell in and out of love with each concept as the key to life. Or a compass for a meaningful career path. Or a mantra for mental health.
Why don’t resolutions or these other tenets stick? At first, they’re inspiring, but eventually, they start to feel too rigid or limiting in some way.
Maybe expecting any one idea to be an all-encompassing north star is equivalent to summing up our wild, wonderful, complicated existence in one word. The problem might not be the concept itself but the idea of a singular guiding principle.
Still, I long for a touch tree, a reference point I can return to so I don’t get lost as I explore different directions. Given my friends didn’t entirely write off resolutions, I don’t think I’m alone here.
Call it a guiding principle, resolution, intention, theme, tenet, philosophy, or whatever. Most of us are seeking some framework to make sense of the many decisions we have to make, whether it’s how we spend our time, where we work, or how we find fulfillment.
I wanted to understand why I couldn’t stick with these ideas our culture proselytizes. Then I could decide whether to give up on a north star altogether or find one that feels like a better fit. (Spoiler alert: I landed on the latter.)
PURPOSE
What is it: Purpose feels very outcome-oriented. Of course, your purpose could be to “just be.” But in our cultural conversation, I see purpose portrayed as “what do you want to accomplish in life? What is your legacy? Why did a higher power place you here?”
What I like: I think goals are great, so I admire the directionality and ambition. Often purposes are lofty end states like “saving the planet” or “championing equity.” I love the idea of structuring your life around making the world better. It also speaks to our core values and allows us to measure whether we live up to our ideals.
What I find limiting: It feels too narrow—I’m either doing purposeful work or indulging in purposeless distractions. Rather than being able to savor downtime or explore career detours or just do something for the pure joy of it, I feel guilty I’m not making progress. Plus, focusing only on goals or outcomes makes me lose sight of the present moment. Purpose then becomes this toxic tradition of delaying gratification. Once I accomplish this or cement my legacy, then I deserve to relax. It’s exhausting.
PASSION
What is it: Passion is a combination of enthusiasm and skill. I see passion as something that lights you up inside and something you have or develop an aptitude for. Passion is more so hobbies and side hustles than values-based visions of the future. It’s a willingness to keep learning and improving.
What I like: Passion encourages us to seek what inspires and motivates us. It also promotes playing to our unique strengths. Unlike purpose, passion feels oriented around the process rather than an outcome. It’s a flow state, not an end state.
What I find limiting: Should we make our passions our professions—if it’s even possible? What if that takes the joy out of it? Or, if we’re relegating our passions to non-work hours, are we living our lives to the fullest? Some people can get paid to do what they love, and they never tire of it, and that’s fantastic. But not all passions are profitable. And it feels pretty shitty to only give my passions the smallest slice of my time and the dregs of my energy. Sometimes I just don’t have enough hours in my day to work, pursue my passion, and do all the other things to care for myself. Passion can start to feel like an unmet promise. Or just another to-do.
PLEASURE
What is it: Happiness. Joy. Fun. Bliss. Pleasure is an emotional state. I also see it as a measure of health, mentally and physically. If purpose is a goal and passion is a practice, pleasure is presence. It’s living in the moment. It’s enjoying life. It’s sunshine and satisfaction and sweetness.
What I like: Purpose and passion both feel like I have to do something. Pleasure feels like a permission slip to just be. To kick back and relax. To savor this beautiful life right in front of me. To be at peace with everything going on in the world, most of which is out of my control anyway.
What I find limiting: It feels both unattainable—as happiness is fleeting—and a little frivolous. Humans have an incredible array of available emotions. Why should we want to paint our lives in only one color? Other emotions are not obstacles to be avoided—they’re part of living a full life. Plus, pleasure can be very self-serving. It allows us to abandon purpose when things get hard. It allows us to neglect passions that require practice. It allows us to turn a blind eye to things that don’t make us happy.
Maybe the answer is all three: purpose to give life meaning, passion to give us drive, pleasure to give us balance. That works fairly well. But it becomes a little unwieldy for me. I have the same problem with the Japanese ikigai framework.
What happens when these three things come into conflict—what takes precedence? How do we make time for all these things if they don’t overlap? How do we keep it all straight in our heads? As far as a guiding principle goes, it feels a little all over the place.
Taking the best parts of each of these, I’ve settled into a fairly obvious, straightforward framework that works for me.
WELL-BEING
What is it: Well-being is centered on health. Of ourselves and our community. It’s having our needs met, having a strong sense of self, being safe, and being connected. It’s basically Maslow’s hierarchy of needs—the version with self-transcendence.
What I like: This concept feels specific enough to easily grasp and malleable enough for life’s ever-changing circumstances. It has a sequential, prescriptive nature, which I find helpful as a guiding principle: meet your basic and psychological needs, so you can help address the needs of others. It acknowledges that we can’t persevere in something if we don’t preserve ourselves.
How it’s different: What I need to be well changes constantly. Sometimes I need a break to take care of my body and mind. Sometimes I need to follow my passion and create something I can be proud of. Sometimes I need to dig deep and work hard to make our planet a better place. Well-being gives me the framework to know where to focus my energy at any moment. It encourages me to be present and check in with myself. It allows me to see pleasure, passion, and purpose as all part of a bigger ethos rather than three distinct ideas vying for attention.
So I’m rethinking my re-do of last year’s intention to give well-being a shot as my theme or north star or guiding principle or whatever. It feels right. For now, at least. Only time will tell… Consider this a belated letter to my future New-ish Year self.
