At a certain point in our lives, it can happen that we begin to have questions such as: what is the point of all this? Is this the life I want? Is this how I want to spend my existence on this planet? Don’t worry, you’re in good company, much more than you might think. In Peoplerise we call this moment of passage the pursuit of purpose or of the calling.
To be clear, it’s not about achieving perfection or enlightenment, it’s about figuring out if our lives are as meaningful as we’d like or if our days are missing something important. The pursuit of calling or purpose is a fascinating, adventurous, and sometimes terrifying path of personal development. Because there is no recipe and it is not a path that can be forced. Instead, it is only generated by the attention we pay to those questions that resonate within us. Listening to that voice, which if you want we can call the inner voice, is in fact extremely important.
There are some people who have known their calling since they were very young. For me for example, it wasn’t that easy. In my personal experience I knew I was approaching my calling because I felt that the experience I was having was not the right one. So, through a series of experiences and a succession of “this isn’t it”, “this isn’t it either”, ” it’s not this”, the search allowed me to get to the point.
And that’s the good news, if we work on it and pay attention, little by little we can gain clarity within ourselves. At some point, however, the pursuit of the call may require us to stop what we were doing. Because committing to finding something new involves attempting to enter a space of uncertainty. And there’s no need to be frightened if at some moments doubt and insecurity become very present companions; it’s part of the package. Even the little voice that says insistently “maybe I could go back to my previous life, then it would be safer”.
There is a game, a bit macabre but effective, that I once heard being played. It consists of asking yourself: what do you want written on your tombstone? It doesn’t necessarily have to be something big. In fact, one of the problems is that examples of people like Ghandi, Mandela, Dalai Lama, San Francesco, Steve Jobs are often brought up. But I don’t want to be them, with all due respect and esteem. I want to be Jake Esman and understand what I can bring to the world!
Sometimes I feel that living according to our calling or purpose is also something for the privileged. I think this is a way to escape the questions and an excuse not to start. Because deciding that we want to figure out how to make our lives the most valuable experience possible requires a choice. It is a choice to live our existence in a meaningful way. Whatever that means for us. And it doesn’t even necessarily have to be something we’re particularly good at. As long as it’s what feeds our soul. It’s shifting from a reactive model of “I’m not happy but I need the money, so I keep doing a job I don’t like”, to a creative model of “I’m not going to work just to pay the bills, I want to be able to pay them by doing what is inspiring and meaningful to me”.
The ball is now in your court: are you happy?
