Relation between our life path and career : Finding purpose

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. 

                                                                                                                                 — Mark Twain 

What is our life path?

Life path is the ways in which we follow a certain set of actions that we consider the central theme or meaning of our lives.

What is the meaning of life?

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

                                                                                                                                — E.E. Cummings

The meaning of life is determined by our values. Values are the system that we use as a metric system to measure the quality of our life journey. These metrics are very subjective and tend to be different in each individual on some level.

The metrics are determined by our priorities in life in a given period and context. For example, money and personal relationships are two different parameters and one may choose money over personal relationships and another individual can prefer personal relationships over money. 

The relation between life path and career: What is our purpose?

Most of us go to our graves with our music still inside us, unplayed. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

We often hear people talk about the greater meaning of life, the ultimate purpose, setting the goal and all these require a deeper understanding.

Our life path or journey makes our life more meaningful only if we know the purpose of our lives. We spend a great deal of time in our lives doing jobs and that's how this is associated with our job satisfaction, in other words, job satisfaction and life purpose can be understood as deeply interrelated aspects.

Many confuse reaching a top position of management and empowering others to grow in the company is their purpose. The word "empowering others" can be a great way to put a word to a foggy idea of our purpose since it remains unexplained as to how exactly they are going to instill a sense of empowerment in others if their metrics are different from others.

However, one thing is certain here that each one of us wants to be as useful as possible. This sense of shared purpose can be a guiding tool for the leaders in us.

The idea is to keep the purpose as simple and personal as possible. For example, if someone sees their family as their top priority then they should keep that in mind and do everything to give their family as much happiness as possible. Another scenario could be listening to our childhood experiences of looking for the colorful bird in summer and connecting that tenacity to find the next link in our job of, let's say, scientific research on the color of different breeds of birds. 

What it takes to do well and do good at the same time!

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.

                                                                                                                — George Bernard Shaw

Knowing our purpose isn't good only for our job satisfaction but it also makes us feel at peace with ourselves. When we know why we are working where we are working and how we do things when it matters, the feeling of satisfaction can't be compared with anything.

Hence, no matter what you feel about your current job, incorporating the approach of redefining and reconnecting your purpose with your life is only going to be more meaningful for your career and unique life path.