farfaraway

As a kid, all I wanted to be when I grew up was AWAY. I went to university, studied something practical, and now work in health care. The money was very good when I lived in the US, and that was a good enough trade-off for me. I knew from day one that I was not pursuing a passion, but a nice safe job in health care was my one-way ticket out of the family. In the country I live in now, the pay for health care workers is just crap, and I'm not willing anymore to stick around in this job for the next 36 years.

But what do I want to do? I am stumped. Self-expression is a big problem for me. I've been squelching my emotions and desires for so many years that I don't even know how I feel much of the time. It took me over 30 years to get into the position to even think about doing what I really want. Whatever it is...

Is it the same for the rest of you? Has anyone found the elusive life's purpose? Or is this just a myth and I am guessing at what normal is???

Kialua

I would venture to say that a lucky few are those who find purpose and fulfillment in their chosen occupation. That is usually found in religion, hobby, your own family. Most do indeed work to survive and find their purpose elsewhere.

Intrepid

farfaraway, I can relate to everything you said.

If you are in a position of re-evaluating your life, I think a good place to start is to look at things that bring you pleasure. Kind of like the cliched, but wise Joseph Campbell quote "follow your bliss." It might not manifest in your day job (or maybe it will!), but you may find happiness and fulfillment in other areas. A therapist once told me that I need to focus on doing things that bring me pleasure every day. It was surprisingly difficult, but a worthwhile endeavor. She said that people with a history of trauma have more difficulty experiencing pleasure. Could this be an issue with you too?

DavidG

Hmmm... for me, at the moment, life's purpose is 'staying in the present'. And having friends who help me stay here, in the present...

Kialua

Yes follow your bliss is good advice. I've always like the quote "Go where you are celebrated, not just tolerated" by Joyce Meyer.

tromboneliness

I just find that irritating, when people use it as career advice. I mean, it's easy for a tenured professor to say, "follow your bliss," but that presumes that (a) we HAVE anything resembling bliss in our lives, and that (b) people will pay us to do it.

If Campbell walked up to an assembly line worker and said, "Why are you doing this job? Follow your bliss!," he'd get a punch in the nose.

Doing it outside of work, though, is another story... and sure, it's what we should be doing. In my case, I tend to do it for awhile, then say, "Hey, it's time for some self-abandonment -- STOP DOING THIS STUFF YOU LOVE!" Been working on that....

T

melissa6381

You should read Gretchen Rubins "the happiness project" I think you would get a lot out of it. Easy fun read and really insightful.

DesertEyes

Goodness yes, perfect description of how it was for me. I ran away from home when I was 12, best decision of my life. Many years later, when I was old enough to have a legal job, I managed to put myself thru school and even got a degree. For the exact reason you mentioned, to get a job and have a nice place to live in.

I found my purpose. I found that all those cute quotes about "bliss" and "carpe diem" are not really meant to be directions. They are enthusiastic encouragement, nothing more. The specific directions and step-by-step guidance is something I had to work out for myself.

Some good sponsors gave me a few ideas. The first was to pass along to others in recovery those things that worked for me, so here goes:

I made a list of things i _liked_ to do. Without expectations or caveats. I liked to get AWAY, obviously, as an ACA runaway, that need to escape never left me. So every weekend I go somewhere, anywhere. Doesn't matter where. Up to the local mountain, over to the next town, across the freeway to the antique shops. Anywhere.

After a lifetime, I've been pretty much everywhere. Except Yellowstone, that's still on my bucket list.

On my list is that I like nice people. Not most people. Just the few nice ones that exist here and there.

So whenever I go somewhere I make it a point to stop and talk to whoever is there. Just to say hello, tell them I am enjoying being away from where I was before. Most of the time nothing happens. Once in a while I have made some really good friends.

I have to work to pay the bills, but nothing says I have to work the same job forever. So I haven't. I make it a point to always watch the ads in the paper. Whenever a job turns up that would be good for me, and not kill my career because it's too soon between moves, I go. When I get there I apply the two ideas above, I travel around and I say hello to people and make friends.

One thing I never expected to happen is that I met people who are much like me. Other ACA's working off the need to get AWAY by traveling and seeing the world. Some of them invited me along to some fantastic adventures. Some of them helped me overcome old nightmares from my childhood. All of them made my life richer, and full of "bliss", simply by being my friend.

I've had some wonderful jobs, exciting, stimulating, even dangerous. I've had some horribly boring jobs, and many times without any job at all. I've lived in my car from time to time, and I've lived in some very, very nice places.

At the moment I have a very boring job, but due to quickly declining health it will have to do. I still have one or two adventures left in me, so the show isn't over yet

The secret, for me, is that it never was the world and the place I happened to be that made my life worthwhile. It was the thoughts bouncing around in my head that made the difference. If I took the time to get to know the people around me, regardless of where I was or how boring the job, I would find the occasional good person. From that I would make a friend, and with the friend I would find something else to do with my life that _did_ give me my "bliss".

For awhile I was a clown, and with some friends we went all over the southern USA putting on free clown shows for kids in hospitals. We lived in a beat up old station wagon, and made money by moppping floors and hauling garbage.

For awhile I swept floors in theaters over in Hollywood, and I met talented young kids my age who went on to become rich and famous. I fell in love with a dancer and roller derby queen who'd become disabled, and we went on to be poor and happy.

I made a few bucks hammering together old boards and making shelters for abandoned animals at a no-kill shelter, and ended up adopting teenagers from alcoholic families that the social services lady couldn't place. Years later those kids ended up moving the no-kill shelter into the backyard of the first house I ever bought, and I was _still_ hammering old boards.

Decades have passed. I'll be at a meeting in some town I am passing through and some stranger comes up to me. "Do I know you?" We look past the scars of life on our faces and an old memory stirs alive. "Weren't you that guy back in Venice beach 30 years ago that ... " Oh my goodness, yes that was me. ( Venice Beach was a great town back then )

Today I am going to a meeting across town where I have met some fascinating people. In the afternoon I am meeting a guy who just started ACA meetings at the age of 50, I get to be his sponsor as he walks this path with me. Tomorrow I am off to the local mountain for a walk, or maybe a ghost town down south. If my health does not cooperate maybe I'll just stroll around the block. Last time I did that I met this charming young lady from Paris, just because I wave and say hello to people whenever I walk around the block.

It's not the big goal at the end of my life that has given my life a purpose. It's what I do _today_ that has resulted in a life filled with purpose. The cutesy saying that I actually like is a refrain from a song I keep hearing, and can never remember the title.

"If today were your last day, could you make _this_ minute count?"

I made _my_ minute count by sharing with other ACA's on SR. I have some other minutes planned for today. If I don't get a tomorrow that will be just fine because all my todays have been filled with bliss.

HP, grant me the serenity
to accept the past I cannot change
the courage to change the future I can
and the wisdom to start today.

Mike

Kialua

This is really me too. I did a lot of escaping as a kid as well. I have travelled a lot, but just for vacations. Even at home though I need to just get in the car and drive, drive anywhere. Find a sunny lake front and just sit in the car with heat and relax. Drives my husband nuts, he can sit in the house all weekend and loves not going anywhere. Today I looked at him and said, "you know I need to get out and drive somewhere, we might as well go and get it over with" ha ha, and out we went.

EveningRose

I hope you don't mind, I've re-arranged your words just so I can answer these two together.

I left home at 18, largely stayed away, most of that time 2,000 miles away, until 36. On moving back near family, it's been interesting seeing things close up, and how my siblings have turned out. I have asked myself a thousand times why I pulled away and 'got out,' while my sister stayed and became a high strung mess still trying to please un-pleasable parents. My only conclusion has been that I did have a passion (two actually) from the time I was quite young. I pursued them. They gave me purpose and a light at the end of the tunnel, something better to look forward to, dreams to build on and work toward. So, no, it's not the same for me, but from what I've heard others say, few people know what they want or what their purpose is so clearly.

On breaking from my family and my ex-husband, I feel, however, that I've delved deeper. I, personally, find my purpose in raising my children and in my faith, in leaving something good in my wake, in making someone's day better. To me, ultimately, that is our purpose, to leave something better than what we found, to make the world a better place, to leave someone else happier and better for our being there.


Despite having passions I pursued from a young age, when I realized my husband had all sorts of secrets going on behind my back, and my marriage was falling apart, I committed myself to dealing with it in the best way possible, to move forward, to not harm my children with the fallout or bitterness or anger. I went on 43things.com--an online bucket list, really-and started a list.

I was rather shocked to find that, for someone who'd earned multiple degrees, had these interests, had maintained a somewhat successful career of sorts--I had very little idea what I wanted out of life anymore, or what mattered to me. I'd devoted so much energy to trying to be good enough for my (now ex) husband, I had little idea anymore who I really was or what had mattered to me. As you say, I really didn't even know what I wanted anymore. Kind of pathetic--I had to go look at other people's lists and almost literally steal their ideas.

But...looking at other lists did get me thinking again about what I valued. It did help me remember who I'd been and what my core values were.

I ended up with plenty on my list, and started pursuing those things, one by one. It has totally changed my life. I would recommend it as one possible place to start, that might kick start thinking about what it is you really want.

VickiACA

farfaraway,

Are you working a program? I'm wondering if a spiritual program will help???

Best wishes.
Vicki