How will you know if you have “arrived”? What do you need in your life to feel like you are a success? Ultimately, you want to ask yourself, “What is your vision of the good life?”
In our culture we tend to focus on material acquisitions as evidence of our success-the house, the car, and all the rest. It’s all external. Interestingly, if we stop to think about what most of us need to feel satisfied in our lives, most of us realize the good life means living in the place where we belong, being with the people we love, doing the right work-on purpose.
There are four elements to living a satisfying life:
1. You live in a place where you feel you belong.
2. You’re with people you love. Your relationships are working, including your relationship with yourself.
3. You’ve got the right work. You’re using your talents on something you believe in, in an environment that fits who you are.
4. You’re doing it all on purpose. It fits your life philosophy.
With each of these elements, you look at your life and work from the inside out. Each one is about you as an individual, about creating meaning for yourself, rather than having the outside world create it for you.
Ask yourself:
What do I want?
How will I know when I have arrived?
You really do have your own solution. If you need help in discovering it, the RWC Career Services Office in 151 Muntz Hall may be able to help you discover what talents you possess and what motivates you to work.
Work can and should give you a sense of joy. Most people spend 60 percent of their life doing work or getting ready for it. So don’t sell yourself short by saying you’re just working for the paycheck. It’s too much of a trade-off.
Are you really willing to trade off 60 percent of your time just to have money to spend in the time that’s left?
Long ago Aristotle said, “Where the needs of the world and talents cross, there lies your vocation.” Ask yourself, what needs doing? Then put your talents to work on some area of need that you believe in.