Find my purpose in life

Over the past few weeks, I’ve gradually developed and become comfortable with the concept that my career and my purpose can and may be totally separate.

Shortly after initially conceptualizing this, I took some time to resume a hobby that I’ve enjoyed on and off throughout my life. Some would consider my hobby work, but when I spent my entire Saturday at the library researching my hobby and still felt like going back on Sunday, it was clear to me that I was on to something.

I’m not ready to say that this hobby is my purpose, but it’s the closest I’ve ever come to finding my purpose, so I must continue down that road.

What’s ironic is my hobby could generate income; not millions, but I may be able to live off of it.

I’ve spent weeks, months, maybe years trying to make my current career fit into my life. I didn’t even realize this until a few weeks ago when I finally gave up trying.

About three weeks ago after a conversation with a close friend, I realized that my “purpose” in life is to enjoy life and my purpose doesn’t need to have anything to do with my chosen career. My purpose doesn’t need to be saving the manatees. It doesn’t need to be something big or dramatic. It can change over time.

My career should fit a place in my life. My career does not have to be my purpose, but it can and must allow me to pursue my purpose. In my case, it must finance my enjoyment and it must allow me the work/life balance I need to pursue my purpose.

I can say that I am truly lost. I have always had a plan… my plan. I was an awesome student in high school. I made perfect grades, was popular, had great friends, and a great boyfriend. I was satisfied with my life. Now I’m in my junior year of college and I’ve failed out of nursing school, I don’t have a job, I don’t keep in contact with my friends, and my relationship is rocky. I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know what Gods plan is for my life. I use to have such a strong relationship with the Lord but somehow I have grown away from him. I feel like he is taking me through this to show me that he is in control and that his will and plan for my life is bigger than I could ever imagine… I just have to trust in him. Although I don’t know what my next move should be, something inside of me tells me that this is happening all for a reason… and it’s going to be a wonderful! I just have to keep my faith strong and believe that it is all going to work out for the best. I am thankful for everything that he has blessed me with regardless of the things that are going on in my life at this moment. I will always continue to smile, laugh, and look at the bright side of things :-)

Does my career need to satisfy my purpose in order for me to be happy? Can I be happy even if the two don’t align? I think for me the answer to this question is: it’s a more complex than that.

I think my career needs to be a part of what makes me happy, but I don’t think I should depend on just my career to satisfy all my happiness triggers. When someone asks me ‘what’s the perfect career for you?’ The answer is always something that doesn’t exist: ‘I want to do whatever I want, whenever I want, not do what I don’t want to do, and get paid $10 million a year for it.’

Throughout my relatively short working life, I’ve been looking for the closest thing to that perfect job. But I think I’ve been misled. If I want to sleep late, then I need a job that doesn’t start at 8AM. If I want to do whatever I want, then I need to run my own company. However, these don’t necessarily lead to me making $10M / year. (Maybe I need to marry a rich cougar for that).

The point is this: I’ve been looking for the perfect career that will satisfy all my happiness triggers and really I should be looking for the career that fits my lifestyle the best way possible and allows me the opportunity to satisfy the most important happiness triggers through whatever means available.

Would be useful to know… ;)

I don’t know what I am here for.
I know everyones is different, and people feel and think differently. But I want to find out who I am, and why I am here…What do I have to offer.

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I’m aFun Loving Lifelong Learning Builder

I know I, and everyone else of us, might be just a result of all this world’s randomness. We most likely were not created for or born with a specific meaning. Most of the people lived their whole life simply to satisfy their instinctions, be it survival, competing, creating, or whatsoever.

And I think, at that level of the question, we are all just a designed robot or animal reacting to whatever our nerve system demand us to do, even the conscious thinking is just an interactive result of the environment and our neural networks.

However, beyond that physiological level, having one or more goals that is important and satisfiable to yourself, as compared to living a life driven by need for survival and mostly instinctions or “common” values, is something much more accomplishable and also meaningful. By definition, These goals should stay important for lifelong time to yourself, possibly larger than life, and could be anything from a hobby, interest, job, to your family.

Whenever I see some people with great achievements, it always come to my mind that they are so fortunate, not to be “successful”, but to find their own life goals or love at a very early age and have the strong enough drive to stay persistent in front of any obstacles. Because without having true love for something he does, any great achievements and overcoming the huge challenges that it come with wouldn’t be possible.

On the other side, I think most of us don’t have such clear goals or passion in mind. What we have donein our life are partly driven by the inner side, but also very much driven by various outside incidents and events throughout our childhood and adulthood. Lot of times we were told or forced to do this and that for money, rewards, family and etc, even though we don’t really have a passion for them. Other times we might liked something for a short period of time but give up in front of challenges, because the inner drive or will simply were not that strong. Sometime, we hate ourself that why we haven’t a strong enough will to overcome the challenges.

So my wish is to find just a few things in life that is associated with my true self and that would keep my passionate and strong throughout my life.

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I’m aReinventing Healthy De-Clutterer

after much sweating, thinkin and thinking and then thinking some more, i figured out my purpose in life thanks to religion. THANK YOU ISLAM : the religion of peace with yourself and the other

And falling behind. I’ve quit more than I’ve started lately and that concerns me. I’ve always had difficulty with the idea of quitting because it’s usually associated with failure. I envy those people that know what they’re supposed to be when they grow up and spend their whole lives doing that. That’s not me. Not yet any way. Maybe never. And I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or not. How do you get any where if you don’t know where you want to go? Do you actually need to get any where or is that a myth? A push tied to the Puritan work ethic that the Pilgrims brought over with them on the Mayflower? I just wonder and that’s part of me isn’t it? The searching part, like Don Quixote, always chasing my windmills…