Day 12:
I can remember when I was younger and some of the jobs that gave me a paycheck. They were not exactly fulfilling, yet I was able to go there, put in the hours, and they gave me money. But I remember being miserable. Part of it was because I was young and immature, but the main reason is that I had not found out my purpose yet. In fact, I had not thought about it much if at all.
I trimmed Christmas trees, worked at UPS, mowed grass at Covered Bridge Golf Club, built military tents at a factory, was a prep worker at Bob Evan's restaurant, and an assortment of other jobs that I did not like. I will never forget the time that John Bradley, then head basketball coach at Henryville H.S. in Indiana asked me at 23 if I wanted to coach his freshman basketball team. Why would he ask me? No way I would be ready to do that! He gave me 24 hours and after thinking about it, I accepted.
I was right, I was in no way ready to be a basketball coach, but I kinda, sorta found my purpose. It was to be a coach! Ok, so that's what I thought, but as I evolved as a coach to becoming a teacher, I started to figure it out. My purpose is to help others, especially teenagers in finding their purpose. As a coach and now as a social studies teacher, I am around these people daily and am able to help them with that purpose.
I try to give good advice, and good advice comes from experience, and experience comes from....bad decisions. I have always found it funny that teenagers, but kids in general, will listen to an adult they respect and they feel respects them more than their own parents who actually love them. This is a huge responsibility which can cause some problems at times, but I try to help not just the students, but also their parents. Because being a parent is a tough, tough, tough job.
But what is your purpose? This goes back to self-reflection. If you are miserable in what you do for a living, then you have not found your purpose yet. Your purpose is something that brings you satisfaction on a consistent basis.
Challenge: If what you do brings you very little satisfaction, then I challenge you to continue looking for your purpose while you do what you are doing now. Once you figure out what your purpose is, I challenge you to figure out a way to work your purpose into your current career, or better yet, turn your purpose into your career.
