I've been struggling a lot with that question lately.
Almost four years ago, I left a company I worked for for almost 25 years. I'd grown tired of my job and felt completely stuck. I was spending eight-plus hours a day doing something I pretty much hated, just because I needed the paycheck and the benefits. That seemed completely wrong. I figured there had to be more to life, so when I was offered the chance to walk out the door with a severance package, I decided to do it.
Now--1,433 days later--I'm wondering if I made the right decision.
I left my corporate comfort zone in order to find work I could be more passionate about. I wanted to do something that met at least one of two criteria: 1.) I wanted a job I actually liked doing. And 2.) I wanted a job that made me feel like I was making a difference in the world. Ideally, I was hoping to find something that checked-off both of those things. Little did I know that finding any job was going to be way harder than I ever imagined.
The first three years of being underemployed were pretty enjoyable. I wasn't able to find full-time work, but I was able to pick up some freelance gigs that I enjoyed and brought in a little money. But this last year has been a tremendous challenge.
I was probably more than a little naive to think that cutting my household's income by more than 80 percent was going to be something my family could survive long-term. Yes, we had some savings that we'd accumulated over the years, and that was definitely going to come in handy. But I wasn't planning to still be looking for full-time work almost four years later, and that savings account wasn't that big. (Needless to say, you should see it now.)
For the last few weeks, I've found myself second-guessing my decision to leave my my job. I don't miss the job itself, but I miss the money. And the health insurance. And the 401k. And the cheap life insurance. And the five weeks of paid vacation. All of those things that kept me stuck in a place I didn't want to be for so long would certainly make providing for my family a lot easier than it is now.
Maybe providing for my family is my purpose in life. And maybe my walking away from something that enabled me to do a pretty decent job of doing that was a huge mistake. Honestly, I don't even know anymore.
If you ask people what the purpose of life is, you'll get a bunch of different answers. To love. To help others. To make a difference. To be happy. To explore and experience. Etc. Mind you, those are all good answers. But none of them are resonating with me these days. To be totally honest, I've been feeling more than a little lost lately. I keep asking myself, Why exactly am I here??
It's probably just coincidence that last night's episode of This Is Us had finding your purpose in life as a central theme. And it's probably just another coincidence that Sam Lamott posted the first episode of his How to Human podcast yesterday and the subject was "Finding Your Purpose." Total coincidences, right???? Or maybe someone out there/up there is trying to tell me that I need to figure some things out. Maybe someone is trying to tell me that by age 56, I'm supposed to know what the hell I'm doing here.
Unfortunately, right now, I don't.
I'd be curious to know if anyone else is struggling with this whole "What's my purpose in life?" thing. Or if you've struggled with it in the past, how you dealt with it. I can't be the only one. Can I?
Feel free to leave your comments down below. And, as always, thanks for reading.
"The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why." --Mark Twain
