Are you doing what you’re supposed to do in life?
Do you see more? Want more? Need more?
For some, my career journey must have looked “unorthodox”, as I keep on changing roles and industries till date. I’ve been in business development, marketing, sales, account management, internal communication, csr, project management, and now human resources. I’ve also been in a non-profit organization focusing on education, bank, start ups focusing on fashion, photography, and now e-commerce.
I’ve never really planned out my career, honestly. I tend to look at the opportunities presented to me at a given time, instead of pointing out for a clear direction of where I want to be and work my way towards that.
And so I am constantly presented with the question
“Am I doing what I am supposed to be doing?”
“Is there more to what I should do to realize my potentials, my purpose in life?”
“ Am I happy doing what I am doing? Is there more to life?”
In fact, I am currently struggling with that question as I am writing this. ‘What ifs’ are always haunting, not due to insecurity, but more to the fact that I feel like there’s so many things I could be doing but haven’t done anything about — as life is a series of trade-offs.
What if I become a full time health coach instead?
What if I learn how to write?
What if take a gap year?
I still grapple with those questions, but found a little bit of comfort (or from another angle, it can be a confirmation bias instead) when reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming, “For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.”
Or when I was reading Adam Grant’s Think Again when highlighting how it is probably much better to have a career check-up questions periodically, where you’re always revisiting your career plans, if it’s still the thing you want to pursue regularly— and to plan out career or life in a two year plan compared to a five or ten year.
And there’s even more comfort to understand that it’s not necessarily the job that provides that meaning or happiness, it’s the meaning you attach to it through the impact, through an earned success — according to Arthur C. Brooks.
Life is really complex — a revelation I get to understand more and more as an adult. There’s a web of intricate details connecting many dots and bringing us to different opportunities at a different time. There are times to ask, there are times we get an answer.
Questioning those doesn’t make you ungrateful, it just makes you human.
And I am enjoying this journey to answering those questions. Who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow?
Enjoy your ride :)
