What to do with my life?
It is a daunting question “What to do with my life”? but while it is daunting, it is also a question that simultaneously opens us up to the opportunity of making a choice to change the current trajectory of our life.
We live in a society that pushes us to choose a career path when we are barely fresh from puberty, a vulnerable time in our lives when we are easily influenced by our friends, family and authority figures and a time when our experience of life and living is limited to the comforts of our home and local community. We are lead head-first into either a University degree or our first j.o.b., and taught, through greater societies expectations and acceptances, that accumulating wealth, material possessions and moving up the proverbial career and social ladders are essential to success, and as a biproduct of this success, we are able to live a happy and secure life, the default goal for the greater population.
It is not until we finally begin to awaken to the fact that the traditional lifestyle we are inadvertently living, is not necessarily the life or lifestyle that we ideally would like to live, that we begin to ask ourselves the big question “what to do with my life”?
If you are asking yourself “what to do with my life”? it is probably because you are genuinely unhappy and unsatisfied with your life as it is, but it is a tricky, catch-22 situation. Have you ever seen a manic depressive person brimming with inspiration and life changing ideas? Probably not! I am not comparing you to a manic depressive, but if you are unhappy / unsatisfied with your life, this lower energy level feeds unhappy and unproductive thoughts creating a hard-to-break cycle of feeling unhappy and unsatisfied with life, but not having the right mindset to break free of it either. The good news though is that because you are asking yourself this question “what to do with my life”? means that you are also open to changing your current status quo.
The key to answering the question “what to do with my life”? is to first simply focus on getting yourself out of your current dilemma by stopping whatever it is that is causing you to be unhappy i.e. the j.o.b., the unhealthy relationship, the living situation etc, then focusing on raising your happiness / energy levels by purposefully doing activities that you love to do. Once the aggravating factors are gone from your day to day life and your happiness levels are up, then from this happy, peaceful and strong state of mind you can ponder the question to yourself “what to do with my life”?
But still the answer may not be clear! It may take you many days, months or years to finally realize what it is you want to do with your life, so in the meantime, focus on doing things which make you happy! If you want to travel, travel. If you want to join a circus, join a circus. If you want to cycle around the country promoting world peace and celibacy, do it! Be brave and walk a different path, a path unique just to you.
When we first begin to ask ourselves “what to do with my life” we are standing at a crossroad where we can either continue on living the expected status quo lifestyle laid out in front of us in all its predictability, or we can choose to start living.
To explain what it means to ‘choose to live‘ rather than continue on with the traditional lifestyle is like explaining the difference between one person standing and another dancing. The difference is movement, fluidity, rhythm, feeling, breathing, sweating and celebration! To choose to live means to move, to have movement in your life : different day / week / month / year, different scenery, different goals and dreams, different skills learned, different people spoken to. Living means to embrace life.
Ultimately, you can do absolutely anything that you want to do (within the natural and social Limitations of Freedom), as long as you believe you can do it and followed up with right action such as continuous learning, persistence and determination.
Whatever you do decide to do, it is not the be-all-and-end-all of your life. Granted, it may drastically change the circumstances of your life / lifestyle, but if you made the decision based on deeper desires / your intuition / what your heart was calling for you to do, then most likely the drastic change in circumstances will lead you on an incredibly exciting and amazing journey, most probably the highlight of your entire life, and besides, love it or hate it, the traditional lifestyle is here to stay which means the security that the traditional lifestyle provides will always be there for you. If you decide to live, to do something different with your life, then do it knowing that if, for whatever reasons, you feel you want to go back to living the traditional lifestyle, then the traditional lifestyle will always be there for you. You may have an enormous employment gap in your CV but the wisdoms and experience you would have gained in the interim will be invaluable and your CV can be modified to reflect your experiences and will ultimately aid you in finding employment again, probably very different to the work you would have found before. Life insurance, cars, deposits for houses, the local sports club and the shopping mall will always be there – the trees may grow bigger, but everything else pretty much stays the same.
So, you have nothing to fear and everything to gain. Go and live your life, be happy, be free, then decide for yourself based on your own experiences and values what you want to do with your life.
What is your view on this? Share your thoughts and experiences below in the comments section.
If you are interested in Life Coaching, then please feel free to contact me, I will be delighted to support and encourage you to follow your heart and start to live your best life now.
If you enjoyed this article, then please consider sponsoring me with a donation. Thank you!
“The purpose of the life is to experience and be happy”
Welcome back. Thanks for visiting!
