A guide to find true love, professional purpose, and meaning in life. ALL IN 2017!

I used to think that finding a career was like beating Pokémon.

I used to think that finding a career was like beating Pokémon.

I had this unique player card with all of these fixed attributes. Once I took the right aptitude test and found the right trainer, I would be the very best, like no one ever was.

I used to think that finding true love was like solving a puzzle.

I was this technicolored puzzle piece and once I found the unique snowflake that fit gently into my curves, Vanna White would appear with a “true love” ribbon and two tickets to cancun.

Sadly, that’s not how it works.

Nevertheless, I spent most of 2016 searching for the one. The one job. The one wife. The one catch phrase for my Twitter bio. (I can hear the cynics snickering…)

But my logic was sound! Hear me out. I thought by keeping my options open — romantically, personally, and professionally — I could increase my chances of stumbling on my calling.

I would put my eggs in many baskets. And then Paulo Coelho would emerge and say, “This, my son, is your personal legend.” And one egg would hatch, and out would pop two honor roll children and a Tesla.

The truth was, in 2016:

• I maintained a lot of different relationships, but didn’t grow closer to many people.
• I canvased a lot of hypothetical career paths, but didn’t cultivate many skills that would further me down any particular one.
• I tried a lot of different methods for finding meaning. (It was like I got a ClassPass for spirituality.) But I didn’t commit to any practice where I could actually develop a deeper understanding of myself.

Thankfully, in my year of slutty decision making, I learned something worthy of a Medium post. (Thank god.)

It’s only after you commit to something that you get to reap the benefits.

Turns out relationships are more about finding someone who is a pleasure to work alongside than finding a matching puzzle piece from the start.

Finding a career is more about cultivating the skills that it takes to do great work than finding an office that respects your opinion and has a ping-pong table.

Finding spirituality is more about doing a deep dive inward than shopping around for the right self-help book or meditation app.

So this year, lost millennials of the world, join me in trying on this mantra for size.

Fewer things, more deeply.

In the search for meaning, the how we approach what we do matters far more than the what. The real work, the real depth, the real fulfillment happens after we chose to give something our attention.

In other words, when we stop RSVPing “interested” to a million different options and start giving our attention to what’s in front of us, maybe we’ll finally find that direction sign we’re all desperately searching for.

There are a myriad paths that we could take, but we don’t gotta catch ‘em all.

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