Where is your work leading you?
getty
It’s graduation day. Folding chairs cover the football field as faces turn toward the podium to hear all about possibilities and responsibilities. It’s May, the month when proud families imagine bright futures unfolding the way the speakers say they should.
Finally, the tassels turn, and mortarboards launch skyward as the grads and their loved ones cheer. Just for an instant, the caps seem suspended in time, like photos in an album, but down they come. One lands near the stage, another slips under the bleachers. Some just disappear into the crowd.
Most lives scatter a little that way. We start with momentum and find ourselves in places we never expected. We may start to confuse what we do for a living with who we are. We hope for success, but come to wonder what it is.
When I was twelve, my brother and I spent weekends helping our parents sell sneakers at Southern California swap meets. One morning, the skies opened as we arrived, and everyone ran for cover beneath the metal awnings. My father waited out the storm a while, then dashed out to the parking lot. A few minutes later, he was back, drenched and breathing hard.
“The vans are gone,” he said. He gulped and said it again.
Someone had stolen our two old vehicles loaded with our entire inventory. The shoes were gone. The family business was gone.
It’s not that selling sneakers to tourists was my parents’ passion. They sold them because they were trying to build a future for their kids. As newcomers in America, they understood what mattered. They lost everything that rainy day, but this was far from the worst they’d witnessed in life. They kept on going.
Working beside them taught me something about myself. I liked talking with the customers. I liked offering them ideas on the type of shoe they really needed. Long before I became a psychologist or entrepreneur, I was already being drawn toward work that helped people.
Back then, I never heard of “occupational wellness.” I just knew there was a difference between work that drains you and work that leaves you feeling useful and alive.
Chapter five of my book, The Art and Science of Well-Being, is full of informative research on occupational wellness (all such references to studies, reports, or research that follow are cited therein). One long-term study found that people with a strong sense of purpose tended to live longer. Other research linked purpose with less anxiety and depression. When people think their work matters, they’re better able to deal with hardships.
A corporate executive might earn ten times as much as the workers who make what the company sells. That doesn’t mean the executive has ten times the job satisfaction. The factory workers may find dignity and meaning in supporting their families or being a valued part of the team. The executive may go home exhausted, wondering why each success seems forgotten so soon.
I know that feeling. For a long time, I pushed hard, kept moving, and treated exhaustion like proof of my commitment. My relationships suffered. I developed ulcers. Spiritually, I felt worn thin.
At one point, I felt drained by environments that no longer matched my strengths. As an educational psychologist, I loved helping school children and families, but I realized the bureaucracy was wearing me down. I needed something else, so I went for it. I became an entrepreneur and then a wellness advocate. Transitions like that don’t come easy, and I felt moments of uncertainty. It took time. And it took faith.
Eventually, I found that elusive “work-life balance,” and it wasn’t what I’d imagined. Work and life don’t need to compete for territory. You aren’t stealing from one if you give to the other. I discovered instead that when one of them improves, so does the other. My energy rebounded as I took better care of my health and reconnected with family. I could think more clearly. I became more present both at home and on the job.
Researchers call this “work-family enrichment,” as fulfillment in one part of life strengthens another. Most people recognize that feeling. When you start feeling whole again, you know it.
In my presentations, I often talk about “the three P’s”: passion, perspective, and planning. Passion tells you what matters. Perspective helps you recognize whether you’re heading in the direction you want to go. And through planning, you can gradually make the small decisions that lead to big and meaningful change.
Most of us spend the better part of our lives working. We do it to earn a living, but it’s more than a paycheck. Work shapes us. It often defines our identity. The deeper question is: Where is it leading us, and do we want to go there?
Every spring, those graduation caps soar into the air—and, losing momentum, settle into unexpected places. Careers do that. So do lives. Along the way, many of us discover that fulfillment doesn’t come from status. It comes when our lives feel grounded and connected to something larger than ourselves.
At the Well Club, we look at how work touches nearly every other part of life. Our jobs matter, but so do our relationships, peace of mind, physical health, and the things that give life meaning outside the workplace. When one area suffers long enough, the others eventually feel it too. When life starts coming back into balance, we feel that as well.
Graduation day must pass. After the hugs and the photographs, all those proud families gather their things to depart. A few caps still lie scattered on the grass. On one of them, if you look carefully, you might see three simple words spelled out in crooked white tape: Don’t stop now!
I think of how my parents found purpose in the present but held fast to dreams. They got it right. Life often carries us to places we didn’t expect to land. Sometimes we find our purpose there and call it home, at least for a while, till new possibilities begin stirring in the wind.