Defining moments are not uncommon in any person’s life. Often, they can take a person by surprise, and if addressed, can radically change the course of that person’s life. I am in one of those moments.
The consistent theme of my life’s history has been one dissatisfied attempt after another to find a sense of purpose, the majority of which has played out in my professional career. My latest occupation lasted for about two years, my personal record for concurrent employment, and it recently ended with my dismissal. Regardless of the details, my dissatisfaction was ever-present in my demeanor, and the company’s management style helped demotivate me even more. It was a no-brainer, I did not belong there. So, I find myself without a job in the worst economy in decades, and I am faced again with the opportunity to consider my place in the world, and the choice to either let circumstance define who I will become, or to become who I want to be, despite circumstance.
“What do you want to do when you grow up?” is a question easily answered by a five-year-old. When I was five, my answer ranged anywhere from being a cowboy to Han Solo. As I grew older, my answers became more realistic, and reflective of what I enjoyed at the time. When I was in sixth grade, I was collecting baseball cards, and I wanted to be a professional baseball player. By the time I reached high-school, social consciousness and reason began playing a major role in my daily life, and the answers tended to reflect what I wanted other people to think of me. I went through wanting to be a marine biologist, because it was popular with the girls at the time. Freshman biology cured me of that desire. I also thought of making my father proud and becoming a military pilot. I even had the Marine staff sergeant come to the house to talk to me about enlisting. My mother cried after he left, and begged me to go to college first. Mothers’ tears can be pretty persuasive.
In college, I gave up trying to figure out what I wanted. In order to do something with my life, I chose a major that came easy to me, which happened to be Spanish and threw economics into the educational mix just as a back-up, so that I could potentially pursue “international business” after college if I wanted. Instead of following my plan, I ended up moving overseas to chase a girl I had met in Spain during my junior year abroad. I spent almost a decade in pursuit, and I never got my career of the ground.
By the time I was approaching 30, I realized that I had confused the concept of what I wanted to do for a living with who I wanted to be, and a heavy sense of purposelessness set in. But I was also in debt, and I the only thing I knew was that I had to pay my bills. So, I found employment where I could, trying unsuccessfully to find passion and/or purpose in the activity in which I was engaged. I am here to tell you, it doesn’t work that way.
Some people can live without purpose, but I don’t think they can live well. I know I cannot. St. Irenaeus once said “The glory of God is man fully alive,” a statement I agree with. I do not think man can fully live without knowing the purpose for which he lives, and I think looking for purpose in a profession was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. So finally, with no profession to call my own and some time on my hands, my heart and mind are free to think about true purpose, and figure out who I am currently and who I really want to be when I grow up. The real trick is finding the convergence between who I want to be and what I want to do for a living; that seems to me a better definition of success rather than being the richest man in the cemetery.
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