Purpose is not just what you do for work. It is who you are when you are finally off the clock and no one is watching.
Somewhere along the way, growing up became synonymous with becoming employable. We were told to build skills, chase dreams, and optimise schedules like we were cars needing an oil change. Productivity became the new morality and the question, “What do you do?” replaced, “Who are you?” This would be fine if humans were spreadsheets, but unfortunately we are squishy, sentimental, existentially questionable beings with hobbies, heartbreaks, favourite midnight snacks, and the innate desire to feel like we matter.
Work is not identity. Identity is not LinkedIn.
Cue ikigai, a Japanese concept often mistranslated or squeezed into a Western Venn diagram that looks suspiciously like a corporate workshop template. But underneath capitalism’s attempts to brand it, ikigai is softer. It refers to one’s reason for being, a gentle sense of purpose, a feeling that makes life worth living. Not a job title. Not a KPI. Not a “future goals for Q4.” Something more like: waking up for the morning light hitting your floor just right. The joy of learning something with no tangible career benefit. The thrill of creating something without having to monetetise it. The peace of being loved, and loving, and belonging somewhere even if that somewhere is your own chest.
The journey back to this softness, especially for Gen Z and younger millennials who were raised on hustle culture propaganda disguised as ambition, is chaotic and tender. We are unlearning. We are renegotiating. We are asking, for the first time perhaps, “Who am I without my work?” And the silence that follows is terrifying, liberating, and sacred all at once.
Ikigai is not hustle culture. It is the antidote to it.
The Western interpretation of ikigai tends to be suspiciously career-adjacent. “Find what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for,” they say, as if life’s purpose must be billable. The diagram is neat. The reality is not. Traditional Japanese understandings of ikigai are far less obsessed with monetisation. They include community, routine, leisure, and joy for joy’s sake. Sometimes ikigai is raising tomatoes in your garden. Sometimes it is talking to your neighbour. Sometimes it is karaoke. Rarely is it a job description on a crisp CV written in Arial 11-point font.
This reframing matters because hustle culture has convinced us that fulfilment must always be earned. That passion must become profession or it does not count. That rest must be justified. That hobbies without output are childish. That purpose is the same as productivity. And that burnout is simply an acceptable side effect of excellence.
We forget that burnout is not a personality trait. It is a warning sign. A smoke alarm for the soul. One can be ambitious without being consumed. One can have goals without becoming a goal. Ikigai invites us to choose the former.
When we stop treating work as the only legitimate container for meaning, other forms of purpose appear. Relationships. Crafts. Curiosity. Silence. Faith. Community. Movement. Cooking. Music. Art made simply because the heart had something to say. Suddenly, meaning is everywhere and not only at the office. Suddenly, we are allowed to be multifaceted instead of commodified. Suddenly, we remember that we are alive, not just employed.
What you love.
(joy, desire, enthusiasm, aliveness)
This is the quadrant that capitalism cannot fully monetise without becoming embarrassed. “What you love” sits in the realm of pure desire, childish wonder, and the things you would do at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday even if no one was watching. Love is inconvenient because it rarely aligns with efficiency. You might love baking elaborate cakes that look like architectural dissertations or you might love staring at the sky contemplating the moon. Both valid. Both impossible to quantify in dollars per hour.
The tragedy is that many adults abandon what they love because they cannot justify it through productivity. If it cannot go on a resume, they assume it must be “just a hobby,” as if hobbies were inferior instead of crucial to being a human who deserves joy. Ikigai drags us back toward enthusiasm. Toward play. Toward the version of ourselves who existed before career day in primary school told us that our purpose must fit into job markets and industry needs.
“What you love” is also where identity breathes. Love reveals what lights us up. What makes life sparkle. Love is intimate to the self, not the economy. If purpose begins anywhere, it begins here, quietly, often inconveniently, sometimes with glitter.
What you are good at.
(skill, ability, talent, practice)
Competence is satisfying. Humans like to be good at things. Skill makes us feel capable, respected, and occasionally smug. But here is the twist: being good at something does not mean you love it. Many people are gifted at tasks they secretly resent. Entire industries are powered by people who excel at things they never chose.
“What you are good at” can grow from practice, not passion. You may become good at coding because you did it repeatedly. You may become good at organising events because someone once asked you to do it and now you cannot escape. Skill is sticky like that. It clings.
This quadrant is fascinating because it tempts us into identity traps. When others tell us we are good at something, we feel obligated to continue. Praise becomes pressure. Skill becomes expectation. Suddenly, what once felt like talent becomes duty. And duty, when misaligned with desire, breeds resentment faster than you can say “career pivot.”
Ikigai invites us to evaluate skills without surrendering to them. Just because you can does not mean you must. The self is not defined exclusively by competence. Capability is only one form of purpose. It is not the entire constellation.
What the world needs.
(contribution, meaning, community, context)
Humans ache for usefulness. Not in the capitalist sense of output, but in the relational sense of belonging. “What the world needs” is about feeling connected to something larger than oneself. It is about service, contribution, and impact in the non-influencer sense.
But this quadrant is slippery. It can warp into hero complexes or martyrdom if we are not careful. Many people spend their lives trying to be needed without ever asking if they want to be. The world needs many things, but you do not have to sacrifice your entire existence to fulfil them. Not every need is yours to carry.
Still, this quadrant is vital. Purpose often emerges from witnessing suffering, injustice, or lack. It emerges from caring so deeply that action becomes a form of love. This does not have to be grand. Sometimes the world needs a teacher. Sometimes it needs a poet. Sometimes it needs someone who grows tomatoes. Tomatoes matter.
The key is nuance: we contribute best when we are not depleted. Service without self becomes martyrdom. Service with agency becomes purpose.
What you can be paid for.
(economics, sustainability, survival, stability)
Welcome to capitalism’s favourite quadrant. The one that gets inflated while the others are neglected. Money is uncomfortable to talk about, but it is necessary. Rent is real. Bills are real. Groceries cost more than grief. Stability matters.
“What you can be paid for” reminds us that purpose cannot exist in a vacuum free from material needs. But it also warns against reducing purpose to profitability. Just because something makes money does not mean it nourishes the soul. Many people stay in high-paying roles that slowly evaporate their will to live. The salary is hefty. The emptiness is heavier.
This quadrant also reveals inequality. Not every passion is equally monetisable. Not every talent is equally valued. Markets shape which skills are profitable and which are “hobbies.” Ikigai refuses to let economics hold the steering wheel alone.
Passion (what you love + what you are good at).
Passion is a delicious intersection because it combines desire with competence. It is exhilarating to be good at what you love. But passion alone does not guarantee sustainability. Without community or income, passion becomes a fiery hobby: fulfilling, addictive, occasionally impractical. Many artists, athletes, and creatives live here joyfully until capitalism knocks.
But passion is also powerful medicine. It reminds us that enjoyment and excellence can coexist without needing justification. Passion is where many dreams begin before they encounter the spreadsheets.
Mission (what you love + what the world needs).
Mission is thrilling. It feels heroic. It feels righteous. It feels like the universe is nodding in approval. Mission is purpose with moral weight. But it can also be exhausting. To love something deeply and believe the world needs it is to feel responsible for it. That responsibility can become a burden if unsupported.
Mission needs boundaries. Otherwise, you save the world while forgetting to save yourself.
Profession (what you are good at + what you can be paid for).
Profession is capitalism’s idea of purpose: competence plus wage. It is stable, respectable, sometimes soulless. Many people build entire identities here because society rewards professionalism with validation, titles, and benefits packages.
Profession is not bad. It is simply incomplete. Without love or contribution, it becomes mechanical. Comfortable, but emotionally arid. Like beige carpeting: functional, no one’s favourite.
Vocation (what the world needs + what you can be paid for).
Vocation is purpose with economic demand. Nurses, teachers, engineers, carers, researchers, cleaners, farmers, and countless others live here. This quadrant can feel sacred, but it can also feel like obligation. When society needs you and pays you, expectation becomes intense.
Vocation is rewarding until it becomes relentless. Burnout thrives here if rest is not permitted. Still, vocation can be deeply meaningful when aligned with self. It reminds us that usefulness is not inherently exploitative.
Escaping the cult of over-identification with professional roles.
To be clear, jobs can be a source of purpose. Some people adore their work and that is beautiful. The problem is not loving work. The problem is believing it is the only acceptable love. Over-identification with professional roles turns careers into cages. It encourages us to reduce ourselves into dissolvable elevator pitches: “I’m a student.” “I’m a software engineer.” “I’m in consulting.” It is tidy. It is socially efficient. It is incomplete.
Who are we when the Zoom call ends? Who are we when the deadline passes? Who are we when the rejection email lands and our worth is forced to prove it never lived in someone else’s inbox? Who are we when nobody needs output from us?
Late-stage capitalism does not want us to ask these questions. It prefers when we buy planners, set alarms, and attend networking events where people hold drinks and talk about synergy while experiencing emotional numbness. It is glamorous in a sterile, spreadsheet kind of way.
But identity is a bigger canvas. It includes the parts of us capitalism cannot exploit: our humour, our nostalgia, our rest, our friendships, our love languages, our playlists, our quiet, our joy. When we centre work too heavily, everything else becomes collateral damage: relationships become inconvenient, hobbies become unpaid internships, and rest becomes guilt-inducing.
Ikigai interrupts this discourse by whispering, “Your purpose is not solely output.” Which is cheeky, subversive, and frankly revolutionary for a generation raised on meritocracy, self-tracking apps, extracurricular arms races, and motivational posters in school corridors that implied fulfilment was a reward for suffering.
The journey back to the self is messy, inconvenient, and worth it.
Unlearning over-identification with work feels like trying to peel off wallpaper that has been glued to your skin. It is uncomfortable. It challenges ego. It raises existential dread like, “If I am not my major or my career or my productivity, what do I offer the world?” And the answer, inconveniently, is “your humanity.”
This journey is not glamorous. It involves doing things badly for fun. It involves hobbies you cannot post on LinkedIn. It involves rest that is not self-care aesthetic content but horizontal immobility. It involves healing friendships, calling your mum, journaling about childhood dreams, and confronting the terrifying possibility that you deserve joy without performance.
Ikigai is discovery, not optimisation. It is returning to the small self we abandoned to become the palatable adult version others expected. It is remembering we once loved dinosaurs, painting, insects, planets, singing, baking, running, dancing, or collecting shiny rocks without wondering if it built our portfolio.
Purpose is quieter than hustle culture makes it seem. It does not shout. It hums. It waits. It reveals itself in the mundane. Sometimes your reason for living today is your morning tea. Sometimes it is a friend. Sometimes it is watching anime in your childhood bedroom. Sometimes it is nothing spectacular, yet it is still valid.
Work may be part of your purpose, but it is not your entire name.
We are not here solely to work, perform, or impress. We are here to experience being alive. To love, to learn, to create, to grieve, to rest, to connect, to change, to grow, to witness beauty, to hold pain, to tell stories, to laugh loudly, to fail publicly, to heal privately, to belong deeply, and to honour the parts of ourselves that were never about productivity in the first place.
If work is part of your ikigai, embrace it. If it is not, do not panic. Meaning is not a career path. It is a practice. And sometimes the purpose of life is not ascendancy but authenticity.
Ask not “What do you do?”
Ask, “What makes your existence feel worth waking up for?”
That, more than any job title, is who you are.
For more such articles, visit Her Campus at MUJ. And if you too are beefing with capitalism and trying to remember who you are beyond LinkedIn, visit Niamat Dhillon at HCMUJ.