Last week I heard about a new magazine named Worthwhile.
This is what Worthwhile is all about: passionate, purposeful work; spending our days doing what makes us come alive. And, in the process, leaving the world a better place.
About 2 years ago I embarked on a quest to really figure out what it is I really wanted to do in the world and with myself. This was after a lengthy period of grieving over the end of dot-com era. I wasn't just grieving over the start-up itself, the Internet industry or the end of a job so much -- although those certainly were losses as well.
It really felt like the end of an era where employees had some sort of balance of power. After the tech crash of 2001, the balance of power had now shifted back to where it had been and it was time again to "shut up, put up and just be happy you have a job."
One of the reasons I was so ecstatic to be working as CTO of a start-up (although CTOs are often individual contributors, at a young start-up it meant I also wore the hats for VP Engineering and VP Product Management). I was going to finally have some authority to build a company culture, at least within the engineering team whom I managed, but most likely infuse the entire company as well (as I reported directly to the CEO). So, the dream of experimenting with organizational structures, team-building and innovation and development processes within a real live lab went out the window with the "dot-com bomb."
Looking for a job in 2001, I felt like I had a scarlet letter boldly plastered on me. Now how could I possibly fit back into the mold of traditional organizational codes? was the question everyone didn't ask out loud but hung heavy in the air.
The truth was I couldn't. And I didn't want to. I can't speak for every woman, but the glass ceiling is most likely the least of reasons women leave corporate America.
I was tired of settling. A large part of this "clarity quest" as I call it revolved around career and work as it is a significant portion of one's life to ignore or write off when it often consumes 8+ hours (especially if you work for tech industry and/or entrepreneurial ventures) for 5 days a week.
Annie Dillard's quote haunted me.
"How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives." -- Annie Dillard
What I planned as a 3-month intense time of reflection with a specific intention: to find my life purpose (without any doubt) and really be happy turned into more like two years. What I've learned since is beyond anything I could have expected.
Anita Sharpe of Worthwhile quotes Howard Thurman:
"Do not ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. For what the world needs is more people who have come alive."
One thing I have learned is that wherever you go, there you are. The myth is that there is some worthwhile "it" (replace "it" with job, location, cause, relationship, etc.) out there that if you just could find, then finally everything would fall in place and the world would be your oyster.
“When you are in your creation and you are doing what you love to do, you become what you really are again. You are not thinking in that moment; you are expressing. When you are doing your best in your creation, the mind stops. You are alive again.” – Miguel Ruiz, The Voice of Knowledge
The reality is you bring the passion, the purpose to work and not the other way around. You are the source of passion and fulfillment. And passion, purpose, creativity, fulfillment, meaning can't be neatly compartmentalized to a tidy segment of your life called "work" -- (and this is good news) it will infuse and permeate your whole life. (Easier said than done, I can hear you mumble...ah, but is that another myth?)
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