You Are One Whole Being
It’s time to reject the idea that you have multiple selves. You play different roles on life’s stage-income earner, care provider, haver-of-fun. You probably even feature different sides of yourself while doing each-punctual and organized, compassionate yet disciplined, wild and uninhibited. But they are all still a part of the one you.
We are crushed with propaganda to find our life’s passion in work, to identify the mystery of work-life balance, to map out our five year plan so we can land somewhere ‘worth it’ when that time comes.
Have you switched out your brain in between each of these activities? Of course not. So why do we slice ourselves up into segments like we have?
Starting from work and force-fitting it into some kind of passion statement is totally backwards and ridiculous. Instead, think of you-this whole being that we have just recognized-and what you are passionate about in general. What do you value that leads to your passions? You might like to help people. You might thrive on adventure. You might find your flow when you are building things. Moving from identifying what you are passionate about and finding a career based on them might feel more like trying to leap across a gorge rather than just crossing a stepping stone. This is why so many of our passions roll into the deep, at at risk of not being recovered. Break down into simple statements what is it that you get out of each of these passions so that you have something bite sized to work with. From here, look for the ways that you can implement these passions into your whole life. No matter what role you are playing at any given time, you can be living your passion, all because you broke it down into an identifiable task. Bonus is that doing this will actually make all of the tasks that your whole self does more enjoyable and rewarding.
Balance is not just a see-saw between two giants called Work and Life. Besides, it’s not healthy to have such a strong separation (which is usually a negative separation at that) between things that are a part of you. Instead we should just be looking for…Balance. One word. The inputs of your life flowing in-between each other as they may. Mentally, I think that we can all do this, by not allowing things to creep beyond your own personal tipping point. What does this mean? Get to the root of why something is causing stress. Say no. And most helpful to me, remind yourself that you are more than just one piece of your life, and always focus on the big picture.
Living a life of purpose is your own personal utopia. Start again from your passions. What do you want to do more of? What do you want to learn more about? How do you want to grow your passions? Make this your roadmap instead of something soulless like just a job title, especially if that job title doesn’t have particular meaning to you.
Lastly, your whole self lives the whole 24 hours in a day, so let your whole self be present for everything you do. Give yourself the gift to just be who you are, and eliminate that awful, claustrophobic feeling of putting yourself in a box.
