I have found my purpose and passion in life and am living it every day with joy

Ask a midwife at four in the morning whether she is living her purpose and you will get a look. Ask her at fifty whether she chose right and you will get something else entirely.

Purpose is a direction. Joy is weather. They run on different timescales, and one of them is under no obligation to show up on a Wednesday.

That is worth holding on a flat day, because a flat day is not evidence against anything.

The people most obviously living their purpose are rarely elated. They are absorbed, which looks quieter from outside and feels considerably better from within.