Purpose: The Forgotten Dimension

This is my final contribution of 2025, an offering on purpose, and an invitation to pause before the new year begins.

Rather than entering another year searching for purpose or hoping it shows up, this episode invites you to start the year already grounded in it.

You’ll learn:
• Why searching for purpose can actually disconnect you from it
• How modern culture distorts our understanding of purpose
• The real origin and meaning of the word “purpose”
• Why purpose is less about seeking and more about sharing
• How generosity becomes the engine of meaning and fulfillment
• What this shift changes in how we think about work, success, and impact

Purpose isn’t something to chase. It’s already with us, if we let it. And when we do, happy work is closer than we think.

Text us! We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Follow on Linkedin: Olivier Egli

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
I'm your host Olivier and this is the Do Happy
Work Podcast where we look atwork in a different, more
natural, and more peaceful way.
Welcome back to Do Happy Work.
As this year comes to a close,we're invited, almost compelled,
to look back, digest what hashappened, and imagine how we

(00:21):
want to move into the nextchapter.
And I think never has this beenas important as at the end of
this tumultuous year.
I'm not a big believer in theartificial cutoffs we create
with dates and calendars, but Ido respect traditions, and this
particular tradition mattersbecause right now people are

(00:43):
more open to reflection,renewal, and to deeper work.
So when someone recently askedme what I would want to leave
people with as a final thoughtfor the year, I didn't hesitate.
For me it was purpose.
But purpose in a bigger sense.
Purpose as a word that driveshumanity, but that also connects

(01:06):
us all at a deeper level.
Purpose, you see, is somethingevery one of us needs.
It's something we all crave.
And paradoxically, it'ssomething our modern world has
never been further fromunderstanding.
We crave it, yet we don't have acoherent grasp of what it
actually is and what it does.

(01:27):
We don't understand the concept,but we feel its absence like a
gravitational pull.
That alone tells us somethingimportant.
Purpose is not a humaninvention, it's primal, it's
eternal, and modern culture hasdone a pretty good job of
distorting it.
Purpose is a word that's beentrampled, commercialized, and

(01:49):
packaged by the global hustlemindset, by the modern tech
industry.
Many people treat it like asingle instruction they're
supposed to decode and thenexecute.
We hear it in the language weuse.
I need to find my purpose.
What is my purpose?
Where is my purpose?
As if it's an object hiddenunder a rock somewhere, as if

(02:11):
it's a price on a timeline,something that we have to
somehow fish out of a lake orfind behind a rock.
This obsession withdestinations, with achievements,
awards, and endpoints has madeus believe purpose is one more
trophy to collect.
And the cruel irony, the momentyou believe purpose is something

(02:32):
in the future, you disconnectfrom yourself in the present,
and therefore from purposeitself.
You become a hunter of purpose,which means the act of searching
becomes your actual purpose, andso the cycle goes on
indefinitely.
Some people even attach theirpurpose to objects or other

(02:53):
people.
A child becomes someone'spurpose, a job becomes someone's
purpose, but that's not purpose.
That's attachment dressed up asmeaning.
Because we lack our ownself-informed meaning, we
project it on something orsomeone else.
And if that attachment changesor fails, the so-called purpose

(03:14):
collapses.
So what is left?
What is purpose then?
For years I believed it was amission statement, a sentence I
could print, frame, keep abovemy bed.
I even followed the officialMerriam-Webster definition, the
reason something is done orused.
But that definition always feltincomplete, mechanical, too

(03:39):
small.
Then I looked at the Latin rootof the word purpose, proponere,
which means to set forth or topropose.
And that changed everythingradically.
Purpose isn't a destination.
Purpose isn't a command, purposeis an offering.

(04:00):
Purpose is fulfilling theobligation that comes with the
gift of life.
It's the forwarding of thatprecious gift we were given at
birth.
To share it generously,relentlessly, authentically.
The gifts you were born with,your abilities, your
intelligence, your way ofthinking, your creativity,

(04:21):
they're not meant to be kept,hoarded, or used only for
personal gain.
They're meant to be nurtured andthen released into the world.
That's purpose.
Think about it.
Nothing you accumulate stayswith you when you die.
What remains is the light youshared, the impact you had.

(04:43):
If you live with purpose, thereshould be almost nothing left of
you to bury because you gave itall away.
Not because you burned yourselfout, but because you poured
yourself out into the world,into people's hearts and minds.
And in doing so, you illuminatedothers.
Your candle give light to theircandle.

(05:05):
This also resolves a commonmisconception that each of us
has our own separate individualpurpose.
In truth, the purpose is thesame for all of us.
To express and share the giftswe've been given.
What differs is the form thosegifts take, how we go about it.

(05:26):
The why is the same.
And this is why at the beginningof this episode I said that
purpose connects us all at thebase.
It's what pushes humanityforward as a whole.
Your light has a different colorthan mine, but the purpose of
light is always the same.
To shine, to shine together.
This is what work is actuallyabout.

(05:48):
Work is not a grind, it's not acompetition, it's not a ladder.
Work is a gateway for purpose, achannel through which our light
enters the world.
But here's the catch.
Many of us love gratitude, butrecoil at generosity.
Gratitude lets us feel full.

(06:10):
Generosity asks us to open ourhands.
And opening our hands feelsrisky.
It feels like losing.
But that's the scarcityillusion.
Because when we give with anabundant heart, we always
receive abundance in return.
Purpose is not impoverishment,it's circulation, it's life

(06:31):
flowing through you, notstopping with you.
Maybe we need to add generositypractices to our gratitude
practices.
We're so good with practicinggratitude, but so bad with
practicing generosity.
Just unconditional generosity.
I'm not talking aboutfundraisers, I'm talking about a

(06:53):
general aspect of generosity, ofgiving what you have in you to
give.
So as we move into the holidays,I want to leave you with some
questions.
Is purpose for you a destinationor an obligation?
A place or a path?
Is it about winning something orgiving something?

(07:14):
What would shift in your life ifpurpose meant sharing, not
seeking?
Sit with these questions.
Let them breathe inside you.
You may find that the endlesssearch for meaning dissolves and
something far more natural andfar more joyful begins to
appear.
Purpose as your constantcompanion.

(07:35):
This is what I wish for you, nowand in the new year.
A shift towards a more generousdefinition of purpose.
A shift toward happy work.