November 10, 2026 – Andy is in OurLittleCorner today. You can find Ann here.
Purpose Anxiety and Nomenclature Envy
There’s no way around it; I’m a sucker for nomenclature — at least certain kinds. Nomenclature, according to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, is “a system of naming things, especially in a branch of science.” Given my background in sociology (which is a social science), I’m especially drawn to terms created to describe sociologically relevant phenomena. One of my professional regrets is that I’ve never coined a term that has gained wide recognition. Indeed, I’m a bit envious of those who think up those catchy terms that we see in the titles of articles in the popular press.
I bring this up because I recently saw the term “Purpose Anxiety” (which was new to me) in the titles of articles published in Psychology Today and the NY Times . Of course, I had to see what was up.
Although it seems rather intuitive that having a sense of purpose is a good thing, it wasn’t until reading about purpose anxiety that I realized just how life-enhancing purpose is considered to be. The purported benefits of having a sense of purpose range from adding meaning to our lives to more concrete perks such as “better physical health, higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction, lower levels of depression and anxiety and even a longer life.”
That’s some pretty hefty lifting for such a seemingly simple concept. The problem is that while most of us supposedly “crave” a sense of purpose in life, our search for it is almost always frustrated at some level. At least thats the conclusion of Larissa Rainey, who introduced this term in her 2014 publication entitled “The Search for Purpose in Life: An Exploration of Purpose, the Search Process, and Purpose Anxiety” (emphasis added). She claims that at some point in their lives while striving to define and achieve a sense of purpose up to 91% of people experience stress, insecurity, fatigue, and frustration .
The articles I referred to from Psychology Today and the NYTimes focus on strategies for recognizing and overcoming purpose anxiety . They are worth reading if you’re concerned about purpose in your life, but for my purposes here, I’d like to share a few of my own thoughts about this concept.
First, while it sounds like a noble and worthwhile pursuit, finding purpose in life has never been at the forefront of my thoughts. Looking back, I would say that the things that have brought the most meaning to my life were mostly due to chance or luck (good and bad). It’s as if Fortuna, the Roman mythical goddess of fortune and capriciousness in human affairs, was more involved than I was in helping me attain purpose . As someone recently commented, we don’t find purpose, purpose finds us.
Second, despite my rather skeptical assessment of the the concept of purpose anxiety, I have to tip my hat to Larissa Rainey. The “publication” that launched her to nomenclature fame happened to be her master’s thesis (at the University of Pennsylvania). That’s quite a feather in any grad student’s cap!
Which brings me to my third comment. Although difficult to admit, I’m somewhat bitter that after all of my years of scholarly researching and publishing not one of the terms I created ended up in the headline of a mainstream publication. As a self-therapeutic exercise I created the below graphic image listing some examples of nomenclature that have brought me pangs of envy (and fueled my bitterness). You may recognize some of them from my earlier blogs.
MY NOMENCLATURE ENVY LIST
Note: I created this graphic with no help from AI (which should be obvious).
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After getting this all off my chest, I’m hoping that Fortuna will smile on me and I’ll find”Nomenclature Envy” in a NYTimes feature title. That certainly would help dissipate my pent up emotional distress — and any suppressed purpose anxiety lurking below the surface. In the mean time I’ll settle for the knowledge that my newly coined term appears in the title of today’s OurLittleCorner. Who knows, it could go viral.