I Want to Find My Purpose, But I Need to Survive First
No — and the framing of “purpose first, or money first” is a false choice you were handed, not one you have to accept.
Ambiguity is not free
Purpose advice often assumes a runway you don't have. It says “figure out what matters” as if ambiguity were free. But when income is uncertain, ambiguity has a real cost, and choosing the path with a visible next rung — the ladder — isn't a failure of vision. It's a rational response to risk.
Stability and direction can run together
The problem isn't that you're prioritising stability. It's that stability and direction get treated as sequential, when they don't have to be. You don't need certainty about your life's work before you take a job that pays.
What you need is enough clarity about your own pattern that the job you take, and the one after it, aren't accumulating at random — so that ten years of “just surviving for now” doesn't quietly become the whole story.
Direction doesn't require abandoning the ladder. It requires knowing which rungs are actually taking you somewhere.