Are We Destined to Keep Running? The Dilemma Between Purpose and Gratitude

Why do we live? People have different answers. Let me introduce a few:

One answer is happiness—which I personally believe in. Everything ultimately comes down to happiness, whether it’s chasing pleasure, helping others, or achieving success. Even acts of kindness, at their core, bring us joy.

Another answer is "to find a purpose." But this idea seems dangerously flawed. If your purpose is to find purpose, then until you find it, you’re living without one. And if you have no purpose, what’s keeping you alive? You could easily give up on life over something trivial because there’s nothing anchoring you. That’s why I believe we shouldn't find purpose—we should create it. We should choose something and make it our reason for living.

But let’s assume for a moment that we live for happiness. How do we actually achieve it?

I believe there are two essential pillars of happiness:

1. Gratitude – Appreciating what you already have.
2. Purpose – Striving toward something meaningful.

These two forces seem to contradict each other. If you’re truly grateful for everything you have, you don’t need to chase anything more. You could stop right there and live in the moment. This is how Buddhist monks live—detached from desire, perfectly content with what is. But let’s be honest: how many of us can actually live like that? Are you brave enough to throw away everything you’ve built, every experience you will ever have, just to live in pure gratitude? I know I’m not.

That means we must pursue something. But by doing so, we are limiting our gratitude. If we were completely satisfied, we wouldn’t need to chase anything at all. And so, we find ourselves trapped in a cycle:

• We invent purpose after purpose to keep ourselves moving.
• We never feel fully satisfied, because if we did, we’d stop.
• We must always be striving, yet never completely fulfilled.

Is this just the nature of existence? Are we destined to keep running, inventing meaning only to prevent ourselves from stopping?

What do you think? What’s your philosophy on life?