There's a lot of talk about finding your purpose. When I first started getting into self help all those years ago, I was reading books along the theme of living your best life and thought that I was going to make lots of money fulfilling my purpose.
Since then, I have discovered that that is not quite how life works, or at least, that there is a bit more to it than just a positive mindset and aiming for your dream. Books like The Secret and other related material miss out some important components, such as:
If you have a lot of money issues, it takes time and deep introspection to work through them.
Merely changing your thoughts to think positive just isn't really a thing.
There really are a lot of obstacles on the journey to living your dream.
And perhaps most importantly, different people have different capabilities.
I was very naive. I thought I could make it big in the self help world and escape the big, bad, ugly world of the 9 to 5. More than 15 years after initially reading these 'ra ra' books, I have stumbled through a few different jobs and don't really feel all that much closer to finding my life purpose, or at least my outer purpose. My inner purpose is certainly a lot clearer.
The overriding theme of my life in regards to work has been doing things that I don't really want to do, but having brain freeze when it comes to trying to work out how I can find a vocation that will truly fulfil me. The self help and spiritual world almost has its own job market these days, with a particular emphasis on coaching - it seems like almost everyone is wanting to be a coach now. Of course, I was contemplating going in that direction last year, but in reality, I was never quite aligned with it.
I would say that the coaching boat has now sailed away.
For neurodivergent people, the work world can really be a struggle. I am mildly amazed at how some people can work 60+ hours a week. I did that whilst I was in a crossover between jobs for a month and it pretty much wiped me out. There is a lot of bad press about being lazy, but in all honesty we were never designed to work the way that society tends to dictate. Particularly for some of us, it is genuinely hard to give our full concentration to a full time job. I definitely feel pretty lazy at times. Some of us have nervous systems that were not designed for working really hard, which is definitely a badge of honour these days, certainly in the UK, although the deeper reality is that the majority of people either resent or at least not do not enjoy their jobs.
I can see the attraction in wanting to work in holistic therapies. But - I am not entirely sold on some of this industry. Basically, if I'm accessing any form of healthcare or therapy, I want results. And there is a lot of things that don't work for me.
The system is designed to make people slaves and to make it harder for people to pursue their dreams. And, of course, being an entrepreneur is not easy.
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| Image courtesy of Medium |
All I know right now is that nothing is certain in regards to my work, specifically paid work. I don't particularly like working for other people. And I'd rather be realistic about my likes and dislikes rather than just be an obedient slave and speak badly about work and work colleagues behind closed doors. It was a big blow to come to terms with the fact that the way I expected to leave the 9 to 5 world was not going to happen.
Finding one's purpose is not easy; sometimes it can be doing things outside of paid work whilst working a job to pay the bills. It's not always, in fact it's not usually wise to quit your job on a whim. I had to take some time out of work after a mental health breakdown; whilst the breakdown was not directly related to work, my last job may have affected my mental health more than I realised. I still feel that I have some limitations and need to be careful about what job I take - I simply cannot afford to have a stressful job under any circumstances.
But, there are a lot of opportunities potentially available, and starting from scratch may be a good thing in some ways.
Peace
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