What do I want out of life?

Sometime around 2007/2008, my friends and I were reading the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and working through the book to know what our purpose in life was to be and how we could achieve it.

I remember being filled with anxiety because I thought if I studied hard enough, my purpose was going to be revealed to me. No, it didn’t quite work out like that. But I think it got me to think early on that life could be purposeful and meaningful and I started to question what that could mean for me a bit more.

I’ve mentioned before that I saw a career coach in 2009 who was pivotal in my move towards my current career and one that gives me a lot of fulfillment and meaning. One that is of purpose, you might say.

Of course, purpose is not a destination one arrives at, it really is about the journey through life, the discovery, the openness, and most importantly, the awareness that life has bounty within it and offers so much and we can choose what that means. This requires self awareness of what one is good at, and what one enjoys, I refer to the Japanese Ikigai diagram which connects our passion, our mission, our vocation, our profession with what we love and what we can earn from.

Sometimes it is not always as clearly defined. In my own case, my profession is that of a lecturer and also a consultant. I enjoy tourism, recreational activities and I am passionate about development and enhancing the quality of our life experience. I would say my mission is to get more people to be able to do this, and I have found the tourism industry to be one avenue for achieving all of these, in a way that combines my need for nature and creative expression with my vocation. And I am very fortunate, extremely fortunate to be paid for it. It has been a lot of work, strategising, condensing and expanding but never losing focus on what the sense of fulfilment and satisfaction should mean.

Another time, I will share on some of my challenges getting to ‘Ikigai’ and how it is also a process of continuous improvement -the journey is the goal, and it never stops, so we keep walking.