Life Doesn’t Owe You Purpose: It Offers You the Tools to Build One

Benjamen Mayfield-Smith
Nov 6
5 min read

At some point, most people quietly hope that purpose will find them.

They wait. They scroll. They ask the world for signs. They assume there’s a path, a calling, a role they were meant to fulfill. As if life were written in advance, and all they need to do is discover the script. The problem is, they never ask what happens if the script doesn’t exist. What happens if nothing is written, and nothing is waiting?

This is where people begin to crack because they’ve been sold the idea that life is supposed to feel aligned, natural, and clear. That if it doesn’t, something must be wrong. But what if this chaos, this disorientation, this blank page, is exactly what life is supposed to be?

There was a young man I once worked with who struggled with this exact question. Mid-20s. Smart. Strong. Capable. But lost. Not because he lacked opportunity, but because he was suffocating under it. He’d achieved in the gym. He’d earned respect. But purpose still eluded him. “What’s the point?” he asked one day. “I just wake up, lift weights, do my job, and then what?”

The problem wasn’t his results. It was that he’d been looking for meaning to show up like a revelation. Instead of using his life to build it, he was waiting for life to assign it. He thought it would arrive. It never did. So we started with something simple...

"What if the fact that nothing matters means you get to decide what does?"

That sentence stopped him. And that pause, that discomfort, that’s where purpose begins. Not with a revelation, but with a confrontation. A direct challenge to the comforting belief that something out there is responsible for your sense of meaning.

That there’s a divine list, a childhood dream, a therapist’s insight that will hand you the answer. But life doesn’t owe you that clarity. It doesn’t owe you alignment, legacy, or fulfillment. It offers tools. And the responsibility to build with them.

The problem is, most people are still stuck trying to choose between the wrong types of meaning. They bounce between three sources:

Assigned Meaning. This is the meaning inherited from culture, religion, family, or institutions. It’s handed down. Pre-packaged. Often useful early in life, but rarely interrogated. Assigned meaning gives you a role. A sense of belonging. But over time, if unexamined, it begins to feel like a leash. You aren’t building a life, you’re living one someone else authored.

Fabricated Meaning. This is where most high performers initially thrive. Goals. Work. Achievement. The gym. Business. These are fabricated pursuits, intentionally chosen anchors that feel productive, even noble. But without depth, they can become hollow. You can win the game and still feel lost if the game wasn’t built around something real. Fabricated meaning is useful, but fragile. It must evolve.

Earned Meaning. This is the rarest, and the only one that sustains. It doesn’t come from outside. It doesn’t show up in a moment of clarity. It’s built, slowly, through deliberate struggle. Through choosing hard things that reshape who you are, through facing pain on purpose, and extracting purpose from pain. This means it is expensive. It demands suffering. But it cannot be taken from you, because it wasn’t gifted. It was forged.

The Shift in Actions

That young man started to shift. We didn’t talk about grand missions. We started with action. Wake up. Train. Read. Reflect. Lead. Build something. Be of use. Not because it’s cosmic, but because it’s available. Because in a world where nothing matters, doing hard, meaningful things is the most rational response.

That’s the root of cosmic meta-nihilism. The idea that if life holds no intrinsic meaning, then we are not cursed, we are free. And with that freedom comes the burden to choose. You can rot in meaninglessness, or you can build something that didn’t exist before. That’s the task.

If you’ve ever sat with that internal ache, that low hum of discontent in the background of your day, you know what I mean. The ache isn’t depression. It’s potential. It’s the part of you that’s painfully aware that time is passing and you haven’t chosen a purpose worthy of that time. You haven’t built a mission yet.

And that’s the mistake. You don’t find a mission. You assign yourself one.

Purpose is a Project

Purpose is a project, not a prize. It doesn’t arrive in your lap. It’s revealed through execution. Through doing the thing that calls you, even when no one understands it. Especially when no one understands it.

And here’s the part most people don’t want to admit: building purpose hurts. It requires sacrifice. Boredom. Repetition. Isolation. But on the other side of that pain is the only kind of self-worth that actually matters, the kind you earned.

The man who creates his own purpose walks differently. Not with arrogance, but with clarity. He doesn’t need applause. He doesn’t need external validation. He’s building something that doesn’t make sense to the average person, and that’s the point.

Purpose is a filter. It clears your environment, your decisions, and your standards. It selects for you. But only if you’re willing to commit to it. Fully. Without needing it to feel good every day.

You Don't Need More Signs

You don’t need more signs. You don’t need the universe to whisper to you. You need a reason to get up that isn’t comfort. You need to assign yourself a hill to climb, and then suffer up it on purpose. That’s where meaning is built.

It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t even have to be permanent. It just has to be yours.

Start with something in your control. Something hard. Something worthy of repetition. That’s the forge. That’s the tool life has given you. Physical training. Writing. Business. Craft. Discipline. Contribution. And once it’s in motion, meaning emerges. Not all at once, but slowly, over thousands of small moments of ownership.

That is the beauty of this framework. You can stop searching. Stop waiting. Stop outsourcing your identity to philosophies, traditions, and psychological diagnoses.

The question is not “What is my purpose?” The real question is, “What would I be willing to suffer for until purpose reveals itself?”

Because if nothing matters, then you get to decide what does, and what you decide must be built through fire. Assigned meaning might carry you through your youth. Fabricated meaning might push you through your twenties. But only earned meaning will sustain you through the dark seasons, and those seasons are coming. Whether you’re ready or not.