To Find Your Meaning & Purpose, Look Outside Your Job

How did you find yourself where you are today?

For many, an answer to this question would be easily linked to being in a specific place at a certain time. Not entirely a conscious decision, a plan they have had for years, or a natural desire to be there.

With that, as people, we tend to automatically try to find meaning in the places we find ourselves. This is because it is an easier way to search for meaning where you are, rather than digging deep within yourself or in different places than where you currently are.

So, many choose the seemingly easier route - by only searching within the confines of where they are.

When we look back at how people got to the jobs they have, it is usually due to two main reasons. And these reasons are largely influenced by our upbringing, family influences, and the socio-economic conditions we find ourselves in:

1 - We needed a job or career that "pays" the most, such as law and medicine, as we grew up being told the individuals in these fraternities get paid the most.

2 - It is one's situation where they desperately need a job, and they landed the job they have; it could've been any type of job.

With these two primary reasons, people then tend to seek meaning in the spaces they find themselves in, not considering the factors and motivations of HOW they landed where they are. And then end up in a never-ending quest to find their life's meaning, which they likely won't find because they are looking for it in the wrong places.

Of course, there are exceptions - where one would be doing a job that is exactly their life purpose and therefore provides them with meaning. However, these kinds of situations are rare compared to the former situations I have mentioned.

In most cases, your life's meaning and purpose it is not in your job.

And a mistake many commit is that they take on what they do as their identity; they wear it as a coat, an eternal coat. Ignoring the fact that they may probably be wearing an incorrect coat and taking it as their identity.

And when they search for their true life meaning, they search until they die without ever finding it, because they took on the wrong coat and ignorantly embraced it.

The truth is, for many, their life's meaning and purpose won't be found in what they do but outside of what they do.

Why?

Because they likely do what they do because they were looking for a job that pays well, or they were merely desperate for any type of job. They just needed to survive.

One's purpose is not dependent upon what they do daily, but on the natural gifts, natural astuteness, interests or talents that have been bestowed upon them from birth.

Therefore, if you are on a quest to find meaning and purpose, start looking beyond what you do. Start digging deep within yourself, think back to your childhood and identify the natural interests you had and deeply self-introspect, you will find what you are in a quest for.

Some have not reached a phase in their lives where they seek their meaning and purpose.

But when and if that phase comes - if you are such an individual - remember to not only look in your job but above and beyond what you do. That is likely where you will find it.