Do we really need a purpose in life?

Interesting article in Psychology Today, not a publication I often read, about whether we really need to have a purpose in life.

Sounds a bit heavy perhaps, but I've always thought that having a purpose in life, and  constantly searching for a "meaning" of life, to be overrated, just a back door into the dead end of religion. Personally, I don't feel the need for a meaning to my life, or a purpose to it. I'm here and it's quite nice, and that's just fine for me. But lots of people agonize over it, and the lack of it leads many people into mental health problems. So, you could argue that often it is this need for meaning and purpose that CAUSES mental illness.

The article outlines the way in which wanting and having a purpose in life helps many people become successful, happy members of society. But if it turns out that they change their minds about that purpose they have set for themselves, that's when the stress and anxiety clicks in. And if someone feels they need a purpose and don't find one, they too turn stressed, depressed and worse.

Better, then, not to go there at all, it seems to me. Just live your life, be nice to people, try to leave things a bit better than you found them (or at least not worse), and just enjoy it. I know I am perhaps in an enviable position, born into the western world, well-educated and not short of money, so maybe I have a rosier outlook than many. Personally, I blame religion for much of that obsession with meaning and purpose, but then I tend to blame religion for many things.