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I’ve been thinking lately about how to help women find their purpose in life.

Over my 54 years of observing, reading, and listening, I’ve collected what feels like a comprehensive library of thoughts on the matter. I may start sharing them here, but what occurred to me when I sat down to write is:

Where do we get the idea that we need a purpose in life?

I feel like this may be a modern notion. Something we’ve come to as lifespans have grown and standards of living have improved. I’m trying to imagine a medieval woman, raising as many children as she could birth (because no birth control), hoping most of them would live, trying to keep her family fed, until she died at the ripe old age of 42.

Did a self-driven, soul-feeding purpose play into her desires? Maybe it did.

We certainly expect to live longer now, and for the women reading this in English on the internet, I’m guessing your basic needs (food, shelter, clean air) have been met. So we do have more time to consider what’s important and more autonomy to develop a life that’s meaningful to us.

Purpose can certainly help when we’re going through a hard time.

Viktor Frankl may be the most credible source for this idea, as he attributes surviving the Holocaust to his ability to find meaning in the experience. He even developed Logotherapy, a psychotherapy framework that defines our search for meaning as humanity’s central quest.

I could go either way on this.

I can see why Frankl felt the way he did. Yet at my lowest points, I don’t recall having needed to find meaning in shattering loss, or in my life, to survive it. I don’t believe things happen for a reason, and that works for me.

I do believe happiness requires we have something to look forward to, something to strive for, and just the right amount of tension between our goals and our abilities.

I guess what I’m saying is that you don’t have a compelling vision for your life. It’s ok to like what you like, do what you do, and enjoy the ride.