It’s one of the first things we ask when we meet someone new after exchanging names. Even if we don’t feel that our career defines us, if we reject that box because we resent it or we don’t like what it might say about our choices, we are defined by it socially. It’s what we’ll spend most of our lives doing, and therefore we’re enmeshed with this role more than almost any other.

Growing up, I imagined myself with a variety of vocations. Astronaut, air force pilot, racehorse jockey, artist, swamp hermit (I watched Girl of the Limberlost too many times), naturalist, archaeologist, the list goes on. I wanted something thrilling, something that piqued my interest. I wanted a clear goal and sense of purpose, to be the heroine in my own life. I don’t think that changed much as I got older, but it did become buried beneath a heavy layer of practicality. I got married. I had kids and became a mom, and then I became a single mom. Most of my dreams seemed difficult to attain, and I reined myself in. Conversations with friends and strangers let me know that others shared my feelings. OR they got what they wanted, and they realized it wasn’t what they thought it was going to be. It was more obligation, less whimsy.

I see versions of a particular meme on my socials every year. There is normally a nature photo in the background, or it’s surrounded by a border of something ‘magickal.’ It goes something like this:  

“The world is full of blubbery caterpillars that transform into velvet moths and more stars than we can count in a lifetime and red salamanders that look like jewels against the black earth but go brown against your skin because our very essence drains theirs. It’s full of cicadas that live underground longer than our domestic dogs are alive, only to emerge and grow wings for a summer like last-minute angels before they fade away. It’s full of thunderstorms that rattle my chest and mountain peaks that sweep up and away to oceans whose depths hide an alien planet. Why do I need to be a lawyer or an accountant or the manager of a Honda dealership? Why can’t I spend my life drinking this in and reveling in the mysteries around me day in and day out? I long for a life my nation has labelled taboo. We move from school to career to old age in one seamless line. I’m longing to break free from this unnatural, soul-killing routine.”

The answer to that is: we aren’t dogs or salamanders or caterpillars, and even if we were, we wouldn’t spend our time reveling; we’d spend it sustaining and surviving. An amoeba, for all intents and purposes, a limbless, brainless blob, will spend its time engulfing bacteria, producing more of itself every so often, and hiding out when bacteria is so scarce that it begins to die. When this happens, it will stay in a sphere shape, its exterior often hardening while it divides over and over internally. Then it explodes, releasing all those new ‘daughters’ to live the same lives. If the amoeba stays in its sphere and doesn’t reproduce and explode, it will usually die. Feed, divide, mature, explode, die.

An amoeba engulfing bacteria by Science Photo Library.

All living things have certain requirements within their design, and those requirements increase alongside complexity and intelligence. An inherent part of the human design is the absolute need for purpose beyond consuming and reproducing and dying. Without purpose, no matter how pleasant and carefree our lives become, we fade into depression or go mad or some combination of the two.

For me, purpose has come in so many forms, but when it comes to work, the job that pleases me best is this one. (I don’t count being a mom. Not because it isn’t labor intensive, but because I AM a mom. I can’t abandon being a mother and move on to another career. It’s forever.) Or, at least I hope it’s going to be this one. I’m putting it out there. We’ll see what happens. I used to think my art wasn’t about gifting anything to anyone, and maybe that’s the way it used to be, all selfish and vain and oh so personal. The year I went through my divorce I didn’t draw or write anything at all. I couldn’t even hover a pen over a page without crying. There was too much of me, and no room for it. It felt like drowning in myself, and the only thing keeping me afloat was silence. I withdrew, and I think I’ll always regret it. The only time my youngest daughter heard me cry was in the bathroom with the water running while I sobbed in the floor. She sat outside and didn’t know what to do, and I wasn’t at all aware of her struggle until years later when she told me. I think my eldest learned to be stoic and isolated from me because it’s the example I set. Now I’m trying to undo all of that silence, and maybe that’s most of what the book I’m writing is about. I’m starting things over again; I’m trying to be a better mother.

Me at 19, pregnant with my oldest, who is now pretty much the same age I was in this photo.

I feel lucky pretty lucky when it comes to career stress. My parents have had a lot of money, and they’ve had no money. Their empire has risen and fallen and risen again and fallen again. And the world didn’t stop. It didn’t kill them. You can start over no matter where you are or how old you are, and that lends itself to reinvention and opportunity. Our careers and routines should be fulfilling, not ‘soul killing’. They should be as delicious as looking up at the night sky and glimpsing the milky way. They should harmonize with our souls. I don’t mean twenty four hours a day; that kind of joy is unattainable, and without the contrast of boredom and irritation, it would become meaningless. Life is peaks and valleys, and that’s a good thing, but there should be a lot more peaks than there are valleys. If there aren’t, we’re doing life wrong.

The peak to valley ratio isn’t about chasing euphoria or thrills all day in a sort of manic death dance. It’s about living with purpose, so the peaks come to us and not the other way around. We don’t have to be fire fighters or opera singers or surgeons to attain purpose, though if you are, good on you. Our interests and the opportunities available to us are going to be varied. You might work as a fuel attendant all your life, but that doesn’t make your work purposeless unless you allow it to be. This whole thing is more about mindset and the way you do your job than it is about the job itself.

There is a scene from the television series Marco Polo where a character named One Hundred Eyes is instructing Polo, and it’s stuck with me. He says,

“If you one day you make it back to the West, what will you tell men of this strange word, “Kung Fu?” Will you tell them that it means to fight? Or will you say, like a monk from Shaolin, to summon the spirit of the crane and the tiger? Kung Fu. It means, “supreme skill from hard work.” A great poet has reached Kung Fu. The painter, the calligrapher, they can be said to have Kung Fu. Even the cook, the one who sweeps steps, or a masterful servant, can have Kung Fu. Practice. Preparation. Endless repetition. Until your mind is weary, and your bones ache. Until you’re too tired to sweat. Too wasted to breathe. That is the way, the only way one acquires Kung Fu.”

Strive. Be present. Exert Effort. Be persistent. If you are a salesclerk, be the best salesclerk. If you are a guide in a National Park, be the best guide. Mediocrity is the death of happiness.

Opening the door for someone and gifting them a genuine smile can make a morning that would otherwise have sent an entire day spiraling downward into something with grand potential. If you’re swiping and bagging in the checkout line, do it with the grace of a dancer. Find something good about your customer or co-worker and tell them what it is. When you pass away, people don’t tend to remember how much money you made or if you got as much vacation time as Bob. They’ll remember if you lived your days with purpose or not. The only person who can make you small or bitter or insignificant is you.