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If you're still wondering about what you should be doing with
your life, welcome to the human race. Seeking our place in the
world, we backpack across Europe, job hop, move across the country, get graduate degrees,
get married and buy a house.
Keeping ours lives busy brings a sense of accomplishment. After you've been there and done that, what's next?
The question "What am I meant to do?" is hard to answer for everyone.
Most of us sit with this puzzle at crossroads along the way in life. I'd like to
suggest that the reason we struggle to find clarity on this matter has more to do with
asking the wrong question. Being "meant" to do something implies
that there's a hidden answer somewhere inside you.
Or, that finding your life direction is up to chance.
If we humans were meant to do something, chances are we would have figured it out
somewhere along the way, either in high school, college or sometime
shortly after. But this isn't the case, most people are waiting for the answer to come
well into their 40s, or longer, with no luck. I'd like to introduce a Zulu proverb: "If the
future doesn't come toward you, you'll have to go fetch it." This suggests a
different approach, which is a
more efficient way of figuring out what direction to steer your career.
Contrary to the common wisdom, it's rare that things will
"work out later", especially when it comes to career choices.
People who are retiring will tell you that they're
still waiting, hoping for answers. I work with clients in their 60s
who are finally making the time to decide what they want to be when they grow up, they
never got around to figuring it out.
Going after your future may sound odd, but it's fun if you're willing
to put yourself in a playful state of mind and experiment. Suspend
the notion that your future is waiting
for you. Pretend the future is not a place or distant time, but
an idea in your mind—a fantasy that doesn't exist yet. Do the
same with your past; pretend it's just collection of memories in
your mind. Imagine yourself standing there with no future and
no past. What have you got? The here and now.
The future is now. If this is true, then the theory that "things
will work out later" doesn't ring so true. If the future doesn't exist, then
what?
If there's nothing to find, nothing waiting
for you, and no destined meaning for your life, then
how can you be meant to do something?
Please remember that this is an experiment, not the truth.
>> read the rest of this article . . .
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