Why We Need a Different Way to Measure Fulfillment
There is so much talk in our culture, especially my 20-something micro-culture, about finding your bliss: waking up every morning to the dream you've created for yourself.
That job that fulfills you, and pays you to get lost in the flow of your passion.
I have friends who are entrepreneurs, creatives, curators, business-savvy purveyors or fashionable social media experts. Friends who seem to be making everything in their world turn out so beautifully for the good - owning homes, landing the careers, having the pretty babies on the side.
I'm glad we are waking up to the possibility that God created us to do things that matter and affect change in our society. But some days I just feel like there's something wrong with me if I don't have that fulfilling job, or at least a plan to get there. A niche market for my skills. Or if there's no niche market, it's cool, as long as I'm a self-starter who created it for myself a couple years ago.
The most exciting thing that happened to me today was that I got told "you should try going to Emory" by a professor I admire. As if I haven't tried everything in my power to land any opportunity in my field, any at all, anywhere. I barked up that Emory tree a long time ago, and believe me, it's the wrong one.
(This is counter-cultural I guess, but) I am actually starting to think it is a luxury to do meaningful work in the world, to wake up each day feeling like you're living out your calling.
Maybe it's a luxury, a just-plain-privileged position, to have clearly defined yourself and your gifts/skills (first of all), and then to actually have found a job that pays you to do those things. Contrary to the evidence around me (my smart and talented friends), I actually think this position is held by a few people who've stumbled into the right amount of opportunity, connections, money, and time to make it happen. And I so desperately admire that, and crave it, and cheer those people on, and compulsively check Instagram so I can "like" them.
I know everyone experiences setbacks, the rejections and losses that come along with each stage of life. But I also know we've rejected the idea that some people don't ever feel fulfilled through their jobs.
Which is a shame, because really, some people aren't ever fulfilled through their jobs.
There are so many people, a majority of people even, if you consider human history, who never got to "follow their bliss." Humans mostly worry about food, shelter, and safety until those needs are so easily met they have time to start thinking about interior design, and life coaching, and higher level fulfillment like that. And even for those who've been given an easy head start in life, like me, there are so many roadblocks. Any career has them, probably, but for academia and professional ethics, they're especially harsh.
I don't know why it's so hard to get anyone's attention, to even get into the room with the right people, when the need for better Christian ethicists is so immense. I don't know why I keep encountering locked doors on the road to the career I think will fulfill my calling. But I do know that if a "yes" never comes, I'm going to have to grapple with the fact that not everyone lands the dream job. Not everyone gets to follow their bliss in that way. And yet I've received this calling.
This calling to interpret my faith tradition in the context of health and healing. In the context of true pain. In the times of crisis and mortality, when the most pressing questions reduce to "how do we live?" and "how do we care for each other?" and "how do we die?"
If I never land that doctorate program, that fellowship, and that job, I'm going to have to find purpose in the pursuit itself. Can I find purpose right now, today?
If all the doors stay closed, will I be able to find purpose even then?
That job that fulfills you, and pays you to get lost in the flow of your passion.
I have friends who are entrepreneurs, creatives, curators, business-savvy purveyors or fashionable social media experts. Friends who seem to be making everything in their world turn out so beautifully for the good - owning homes, landing the careers, having the pretty babies on the side.
I'm glad we are waking up to the possibility that God created us to do things that matter and affect change in our society. But some days I just feel like there's something wrong with me if I don't have that fulfilling job, or at least a plan to get there. A niche market for my skills. Or if there's no niche market, it's cool, as long as I'm a self-starter who created it for myself a couple years ago.
The most exciting thing that happened to me today was that I got told "you should try going to Emory" by a professor I admire. As if I haven't tried everything in my power to land any opportunity in my field, any at all, anywhere. I barked up that Emory tree a long time ago, and believe me, it's the wrong one.
(This is counter-cultural I guess, but) I am actually starting to think it is a luxury to do meaningful work in the world, to wake up each day feeling like you're living out your calling.
Maybe it's a luxury, a just-plain-privileged position, to have clearly defined yourself and your gifts/skills (first of all), and then to actually have found a job that pays you to do those things. Contrary to the evidence around me (my smart and talented friends), I actually think this position is held by a few people who've stumbled into the right amount of opportunity, connections, money, and time to make it happen. And I so desperately admire that, and crave it, and cheer those people on, and compulsively check Instagram so I can "like" them.
I know everyone experiences setbacks, the rejections and losses that come along with each stage of life. But I also know we've rejected the idea that some people don't ever feel fulfilled through their jobs.
Which is a shame, because really, some people aren't ever fulfilled through their jobs.
There are so many people, a majority of people even, if you consider human history, who never got to "follow their bliss." Humans mostly worry about food, shelter, and safety until those needs are so easily met they have time to start thinking about interior design, and life coaching, and higher level fulfillment like that. And even for those who've been given an easy head start in life, like me, there are so many roadblocks. Any career has them, probably, but for academia and professional ethics, they're especially harsh.
I don't know why it's so hard to get anyone's attention, to even get into the room with the right people, when the need for better Christian ethicists is so immense. I don't know why I keep encountering locked doors on the road to the career I think will fulfill my calling. But I do know that if a "yes" never comes, I'm going to have to grapple with the fact that not everyone lands the dream job. Not everyone gets to follow their bliss in that way. And yet I've received this calling.
This calling to interpret my faith tradition in the context of health and healing. In the context of true pain. In the times of crisis and mortality, when the most pressing questions reduce to "how do we live?" and "how do we care for each other?" and "how do we die?"
If I never land that doctorate program, that fellowship, and that job, I'm going to have to find purpose in the pursuit itself. Can I find purpose right now, today?
If all the doors stay closed, will I be able to find purpose even then?
You already have a purpose. You just don't see it just yet. I'm 70 years old and don't know what my purpose is. Not for the long range anyway. I know that my purpose at this very moment is to close Facebook and close my computer and fix my husband's dinner. If I were to look ahead and try to determine "my purpose" I really don't think I'd figure it out even at my age. Have I ever had a purpose I supposed at one moment in time my purpose was to be a student and a daughter and a sister and a friend. But then the student part of me stopped and I became a Dental Assistant. Was that my purpose? Soon after that I became a wife, then a mother. Was that my purpose? Because if it was then I've not gone very far because I am still a wife, still a mother, now a grandmother, a sister and a friend. So it looks like at 70 my purpose in life has been just to be myself. To listen to God....to practice my faith....to be a good wife, mother, grandmother, sister and friend. Could I have done more? No doubt. Could I do more now? No doubt. Will I do more? Perhaps. But what I do know is that when I meet my God and stand face to face with Him my question will be, "Are you pleased with what my purpose in life was?" That's is what will count,,,
ReplyDeleteI love you and your hubby!! Aunt Kay
Thank you Aunt Kay!! I love how you said, "So it looks like at 70 my purpose in life has been just to be myself." So profound, when you really think about it, that ultimately God created us for His glory and our job boils down to just being ourselves, our created-by-God selves. Our days will end and most of what we rush around doing will be forgotten. But our lives are testimonies to God's redeeming work, and it's amazing we can just allow that to be our ultimate purpose.
DeleteYou are very welcome. I remembered a line from the movie The Sound of Music which was "When God closes a door...somewhere He opens a window." Just be aware of all the windows God opens for you. Doors may close and what you think you want or need is not going to happen, That is when you ask God to show you a window. Trust me...He will have one ready for you. Then you embrace what that window gives you and move on. It's Aunt Kay again!!
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