There’s few things worse than grinding away at a job you don’t have much love for or living a life of endless responsibilities and drab routine with no sense of meaning or purpose.
I remember working long hours to maximise my income for a great short term insurance company years back, where at some point I felt like: “is this all there is?”.
It felt like a hamster wheel of high demand with endless repetition where I would “lose” months of my life in a void of meaningless responsibilities.
Weekends couldn’t come soon enough and when they came, they didn’t last long enough. Just as I was catching my breath I’d be back on the wheel.
I didn’t feel like I was “living”, I felt like a cog in a machine, serving some purpose that had nothing to do with me or my wellbeing.
I realized a change was necessary, I felt like there was “more” to be had out of life. Through a series of events a new option became clear and along with my wife at the time, we decided to move on from our jobs and start a business.
It was the biggest risk I’d ever taken. Without going into the details, over several years that followed, the results were both catastrophic and revelational.
The perennial lesson for me upon having emerged from all of that is quite simply that in the absence of a higher purpose for what we are doing we will feel a profound and incessant desire to fill the void that is left by its absence.
What is an example of a higher purpose? Arguably the highest purpose comes from the realization that there’s more than just me in the world. What can I give, rather than, what can I get.
There are some subtle distinctions to be made here, distinctions that will leave you feeling either fulfilled or like a victim. This depends upon the meaning you give to my example above.
If your meaning is “I always give and give and give and I never get anything in return.” what side of the scale do you think you’d weigh more heavily on?
The irony is in the word “give”, it suggests an unconditionality which is very often not honoured for what it is. “Give” suggests a gift with no expectation of anything in return. No expectations… There’s a wonderful freedom in that.
You see, it’s all about the meaning we give things. The stories we create about why things are the way they are or aren’t. If you change your story, you change your life. It’s that simple. Not necessarily easy but simple.
It took me a long time with a lot of unnecessary suffering to learn the most pivotal lessons that provide lasting fulfilment in life. I now help my clients get there, without the suffering.
If you’re in a place where you feel like you need a change, contact me, talk with me for an hour. No strings attached. My gift to you.
Find my cellphone number on my home page and chat with me via WhatsApp to set something up. I consider time to be the most valuable currency of all, when it’s shared with high intention, good things happen.