“Sat-chit-ānanda.” I’m never going to risk pronouncing these words aloud and admit to anxiety even spelling them. The phrase is Sanskrit, the ancient and sacred language of Hinduism and Buddhism, and represents an idiomatic concept that—reduced for Western understanding—can mean “being-consciousness-bliss.”

Naturally, it took an American, with our innate facility for sloganeering, to make it a catchphrase; thus we credit famed mythologist Joseph Campbell with the coinage “Follow your bliss.”

This bumper-sticker version of the philosophy catalyzed the notion of finding one’s “sacred purpose” for a few generations of seekers—mine among them, in whose young eyes 1988’s Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth flickered like the campfires of yore.

The popular PBS series was hosted by Okie journo Bill Moyers (who did his best to keep up) and was psychic catnip for those looking for a raison d’être and a justification for a liberal arts education. If one squints, following one’s bliss hues pretty closely to our nation’s Protestant work ethic, which sees work as a calling. Flipping the script—making one’s calling one’s work—was, to invoke Campbell’s words, the “magic elixir” that transformed passion into purpose. So, everyone became artists. Ba dum tss!

And herein lies the problem. To quote 17th-century thinker Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (a title that says it all): “Purpose can be pennywise and pound-foolish.”

Purpose is parsimonious because it ignores the material and psychic costs of sustaining it. Sure, in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a sense of purpose is central to self-actualization, which is crowned as the highest level of need above basic food and safety—but it has nothing to do with the real world. It’s a corporate mission statement, a vision board, a wish…

To wit, many have followed their bliss into a rabbit hole of debt, depression, and addiction, confusing a metaphysical truth with career advice and then wondering why the card was declined.

Purpose should serve life, not be a sacrificial altar. I know where the confusion began: Purpose’s close cousin is Meaning, and they resemble each other enough that Purpose can use Meaning’s ID to get into a club. But once inside, Purpose orders more than it can afford, starts a fight, gets 86’d and still owes a tab.

Sat-chit-ānanda was never a directive, nor a business model. It’s descriptive, not prescriptive—an observation about the nature of being, not an onboarding document for making a living as an artist. Bliss was not meant to be followed down a primrose path leaving the earmarks of success—or bodies—in its wake.

Is it not enough to live without every passion becoming a profession and every profession a purpose? Probably. And yet the open secret is this: we want our lives to align with the premise of purpose. We want to be asked what color our parachute is, even if the answer is Vantablack. Making art can be blissful but it won’t feed a starving artist as well as a sandwich. Following one’s bliss is an impractical call to action; it’s lifestyle marketing for those who already have a sandwich.

So, here’s my bumper-sticker re-translation of Sat-chit-ānanda:

Make your meaning. And a sandwich too.