A Guide for the Unguided
I Didn’t Have to Quit My Job to Find Meaning in My Life
The path to meaning is way closer than you think
I didn’t have to quit my job to find meaning in my life. I thought I did, but it wasn’t true. For 6 years, I had been working in a public policy nonprofit in Washington, D.C. even though I realized I was not a policy person during my second year. I was a writer. A creative type in an academic world.
In order to find my life’s true meaning, I assumed that I would have to quit the ill-fitting job. That my day job needed to fit neatly into the creative definition of myself. During many of the public events I had planned over the years, I had yearned to hang out with the C-SPAN cameramen in the back of the room wearing blue jeans rather than the fancy VIP speakers at the stage. I was a blue jeans person — I was from the Midwest, damn it.
Then I read Emily Esfahani Smith’s book, The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed With Happiness. She opened my eyes to the real source of meaning, and it surprised the hell out of me.
Daily interactions.
She said that we could find meaning in our day-to-day.
