What if your purpose cannot be monetized?
I have officially unsubscribed from the idea that what I do for a living is my identity or my purpose. I don’t want work to be the first thing my friends and family ask me about, let alone it be the topic of conversation. I hope I rarely have to address work in my therapy sessions. My goal is to live a meaningful life outside the bounds of what I must do to earn money to pay my bills and fund my passions. I want the meat of my existence and happiness to be completely non transactional.
As this is a complete 180 from the first 29 years of my life, I’ll share how I got here.
Like most little girls growing up, I dreamed that I would do something incredible with my life. My standards at the time were basically defined by a top level job at a big company earning lots and lots of money. I would get all A’s, never get in trouble, work hard and follow the rules to get there. That’s the only way I thought I could live stress free — having a good job and making as much money as possible.
But the fucked up thing about getting all A’s in school is that it doesn’t teach you what’s really important in life — like indulging in creativity, getting lost in a story, navigating heartbreak, following your intuition and listening to your gut. I was focused on practicality, and dreams felt so out of reach they were pointless. I didn’t think dreams could ever really come true, so I never bothered to have them.
Although I’ve had an absolutely amazing life, it’s been ordinary and safe. The years of my life I should have spent exploring, making mistakes, falling and getting back up, trying new things, figuring out what I love doing were spent playing it small and safe. Looking back it feels like I lived on autopilot — going through the motions society told me to go through in order to be “successful.” And I never questioned it, until now.
Being a high achiever is great until you realize everyone you work with will take advantage of it. Being a people pleasing productivity addict is what our society breeds, yet we’re all depressed, tired and more or less aimless.
At least, that’s where I ended up at 29 years old — jobless and drained at the age my kid self had expected me to be CMO.
But there are some things my kid self didn’t know that I do now. There are many sources of fulfillment and happiness in life, and money isn’t required for most of them. My value as a human is not tied to what or how well I’m able to perform, but is inherent. Rest isn’t extra, it’s essential. My intuition isn’t a piece of my decision making process, it’s the only thing that matters. Boundaries don’t exist until they are set.
I’d like to say I learned as I went, but for me, these realizations happened all at once by force during the worst and most painful time of my life.
There are few events that I’ve experienced that I can say truly changed me. Maybe this is the first. But the growth that I feel coming from the lowest and darkest place I’ve been is coming fast, and life’s too short to ignore it. That’s what I think most of us do to the lessons we learn — selective integration. What this experience is teaching me is that life’s too short to not integrate what we’re learning and let it change our course if that’s what needs to happen.
When I couldn’t think or work because of the grief and pain I was feeling, when I didn’t know what to do or how to function, I didn’t. I simply stopped. Stopped doing, performing, people pleasing, justifying, guilt tripping, judging, producing. Mainly because I physically and mentally couldn’t, but also because it was necessary.
I had to learn that doing nothing but getting by day to day was enough. That eating a lot or not at all was okay for now. That taking care of myself was my only priority — and “taking care” could mean showering or making cookies or reading or sleeping. And you know what? My friends and family still loved me. The world kept turning. I felt myself healing.
I finally understood what being felt like without the pressure of doing.
I confronted all of the social constructs and rules I’d been living in because I was just trying to survive. For the first time, the only place I could exist in was the present moment. I wasn’t thinking about the next day, week, month or year. Had I just quit my job? Yes. Did I know what would happen next? Couldn’t care less.
My brain was going through too much to entertain thoughts that didn’t immediately apply. I stopped worrying about getting things done in a timeline or what people would think of me. I could only rely on my own instincts and intuition, and the practice of grounding in the moment and listening to my inner voice made everything else clear.
From there, everything in my life shifted. I began looking at the world for the first time through the lens of “what would make me happen in this moment?” and doing that. My commitment to myself before everything and everyone else lifted my overall confidence towards the path I wanted to take in life.
Being in survival mode taught me so much about what I actually need to survive, and what is a waste of my one precious life. And to my surprise, the absolute bottom of that list was my capitalistic input and output.
From this place, I was able to accept two opportunities to make money that felt completely neutral to me. Two months ago I was scoffing at the idea of having jobs that didn’t totally light me on fire, but my healing journey showed me that’s exactly what I needed. I no longer search for opportunities that will lead me to extreme burnout and 24/7 people pleasing. To me, having work that is just work is a big win.
When I shared these thoughts about my new jobs with my best friend the other day, her response was, “Wow, it takes so much courage to actually live that way.”
But how am I revolutionary for saying “no” to being constantly burned out, under appreciated and underpaid? Isn’t the real question: why do we normalize this mentally and emotionally cannibalistic behavior?
During the pandemic many of us were awakened to the idea that the 9–5 model is broken and ineffective. I was listening to a Goop podcast the other day that explained the origin of the 8-hour work day. During the industrial revolution workers would be at the factory for 8 hour shifts where they’d produce a certain output quantity in that time. However, in the technological age we’re now living in, work looks a lot different. Just because we’re at work for 8 hours does NOT mean we’re creating and doing quality work for 8 hours a day. In fact, most online shopping and porn watching occurs between 9 and 5. That means we’re wasting so much of our lives pretending to work.
Why are we taught from such a young age that giving 100% of ourselves to our work is normal? Because somewhere along the way we forgot how to make our own soap and clothes, grow our own food, fix things that are broken. We have become totally reliant on other companies or other people to fix our problems. Then there’s nothing left to focus on other than our jobs. What we do becomes who we are, and we don’t even think about the person that could exist outside of it.
It took 8 years in the workforce for me to come to this realization, and I don’t want to spend another second letting other people prioritize how I spend my time.
Now, that’s not to say working or having a career that is fulfilling isn’t possible, attainable or desirable. Of course if we have to work and earn money, doing it in a way that inherently makes us happy absolutely is the goal. I am just trying to bring to light the slippery slope that it creates. Loving what you do can actually hurt you. The more I’ve loved a job, the harder I’ve worked. The more of myself I have given. The more hurt I’ve felt when it didn’t work out.
It’s a radical idea. But what if we put the majority of our energy and happiness into things that don’t make us money?
I have a hunch that a shift is needed; away from the “find your passion and then you’ll be successful” mentality. What if when you find your passion the goal is to just be happy instead?
It goes against our programming. The end goal is just happiness? Not a Tesla and a million followers on Instagram?
Let’s take the influencer example. If no one was able to post on Instagram again and make money, would it be a more real and authentic place? Would we find more connection and creative freedom? Would teen suicides go down? Probably, but no one’s going to say no to money for the greater good of society. So we have to do it for ourselves.
What if the goal is happiness, not money? If our entire society was fueled on the currency of smiles, love and appreciation.
I may have come late to the dreaming game, but maybe that’s mine. What’s yours? If you dare to dream, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
