The search for meaning in one’s life is a journey that is core to the human experience. As long as we know, people have looked for purpose: A way to find meaning in the way we live our lives. We find happiness in this meaning, which is why we desire it. This happiness sourced from purpose is one that is not fleeting, and is deeply rooted in human nature. In Leo Tolstoy’s short story “Death of Ivan Ilyich,” Ivan Ilyich, the main character, provides some crucial insight into purpose and happiness. The story is about the life of Ivan Ilyich, who worked in a court during the tsarist regime, and his struggle with his approaching death. He has several introspections during this experience, and thinks about what he has accomplished in his life and why he has taken this path. Another story that contains crucial insights about the search for meaning and happiness is “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho. Its main character Santiago is a shepherd who has a dream that speaks of a treasure in a far-away land, which gives him the motivation to satisfy his desire to travel, and discovers his “personal legend,” or purpose along the way. He finds his treasure in his homeland, the true treasure being his growth and purpose that he has found through his travels. Leo Tolstoy and Paulo Coehlo are some of the most widely known authors in the world, and their insights on human nature through their books play no small part in that. These stories share the common theme of uncovering purpose, and with it, happiness. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” and “The Alchemist” show that purpose in life is deeply connected with personal happiness, as shown through the life experiences of Ivan Ilyich and Santiago.
In “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, Ivan Ilyich shows how lacking purpose deprives the individual of happiness. Ivan Ilyich illustrates this during his reflections on his life, where he questions his life’s accomplishments and values. On his deathbed, Ivan Ilyich questions his purpose, which shows how lacking purpose deprives oneself of happiness. This is especially true in the passages where he becomes more sure that he is going to die: “In them he saw himself and all he had lived by, and he could clearly see that it was all wrong; it was all a gross deception obscuring life and death” (Tolstoy 214). Ivan Ilyich’s impending death gives him the clarity to think about his life experiences from a more outside lens, and he finds that he does not like what he sees. He questions the achievements he held so dear through his life, the high station he prided himself on, and why he did any of this. This indicates that Ivan Ilyich went through his life lacking purpose, and never was able to grasp at happiness. His story shows how individuals can live hollow lives, lacking any real happiness, and the pain that this can cause.
In “The Alchemist”, Santiago’s journey where he follows his dreams and becomes happy in the process shows that the finding of purpose leads to happiness. Santiago reflects on his journey throughout the book:
“Every second of the search is an encounter with God…When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I’ve known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve” (Coelho 104).
Santiago expresses here how beautifully different his life has become in the pursuit of his dream, in ways that he could never expect. He feels joy in his journey, and this represents how any individual can become happy through true purpose. Santiago also explores how this happiness lacks conditions: “It said that all people who are happy have God within them. And that happiness could be found in a grain of sand from the desert…” (Coelho 105). Here, Santiago is explicitly laying out how this happiness that is found in purpose is entirely self-sufficient, these people that have “God within them”, the people who search for purpose, find the joy in living with little to no further needs: the journey is all that we need to drive us. Santiago models how the individual’s search for meaning is intertwined with the attainment of true happiness.
These stories inform us about how purpose brings us joy in life in different ways. Ivan Ilyich’s life acts as a cautionary tale that shows a life that doesn’t really seem all that bad toward the beginning, but careens toward crisis when Ivan calls the purpose of his life into question. Ivan Ilyich lived almost entirely for the pursuit of appearances, he enjoyed exercising benevolence in the use of his power to feel more superior, and from hosting parties to reading books, acted with what people thought in the forefront of his mind. Ivan Ilyich could not find purpose because he has never questioned the meaning of his life. His lack of strong purpose robbed him of satisfaction in his life choices. Santiago’s story is a more positive, but more abstract one. His total upheaval of his life leads him to find bliss, but his choice to abandon his old life is not as easy to empathize with as Ivan Ilyich’s. He differs from Ivan Ilyich because he begins by questioning the meaning of his life, and takes concrete steps to find purpose once he realizes he lacks it. He finds purpose in his travels, and lives for the pursuit of his dreams, which allows him to be happy with his life choices. What both stories tell us about purpose and its relationship to happiness is that purpose is a catalyst for true happiness. Ivan Ilyich’s story shows us how a man without purpose cannot be happy, and Santiago’s tells us how the pursuit of purpose can provide profound happiness in of itself.
In sum, both “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” and “The Alchemist” explore the common theme of an individual’s search for meaning, and they model how purpose is tied to happiness, in that having purpose gives us a chance to attain lasting happiness while a lack of purpose leads to misery caused by dissatisfaction with one’s life. Today, as many members of society work jobs where we are increasingly detached from the outcomes of our work, and we so rarely can see what our work does for anyone, it can be hard to think of our lives as intrinsically purposeful. Less and less people report that they are satisfied with their lives. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” and “The Alchemist’’ call attention to the role of purpose in our lives, and we can learn from how having or lacking meaning is shown to affect people. Even if we find it hard to directly find purpose in what we do, we could think about what we do work for as another motivator. Many of us work to provide for people, or if not, to provide for ourselves. We can look toward the people in our lives that we are there to help for purpose in the everyday. Supporting someone you care about can be something that you can look back on at the end of your life with pride, and never be in Ivan Ilyich’s position. Being the one to care for yourself is also another way to motivate yourself. Letting yourself grow can also bring meaning into your life. Santiago has shown us that being able to find something that you love doing can bring meaning into a job used to support a passion, a job that could otherwise feel dull and lifeless.