Dear fellow good workers,
Would you take it if someone came up to you today offering a chance at another job or career? If yes, what would make you take it? If not, what would make you stay or choose your current role?
These questions came to mind after watching a scene in King the Land, a Korean drama. In it, a visiting prince offered the lead character the chance to own a hotel instead of her position as a hotelier. Spoiler alert: She turned down the offer, but how she turned it down struck me. Her response was, "I don't want to do business management…I want to provide a happy day for every guest we have."
Watching that made me think of how easy it is to make choices out of external validation when there is a lack of purpose in work. It may have seemed obvious that the "right choice" would be to take the hotel (other circumstances aside) - it'll bring more money and prestige, and some might even say it would have been a promotion from her role, a reward for a job well done. But she knew herself; she was clear on the meaning of her work, which led to a striking sense of clarity on what she would and wouldn't do. It made me think that perhaps contentment is found in being deliberate about living a life aligned with purpose.
Are you content with your current work?
I'm not saying there should be no ambition in work or that there are no challenges in purposeful work. Instead, I am suggesting an opportunity to explore the level of contentment felt as an indication of alignment to meaning and purpose in your work. Where you might experience discontentment, is there an opportunity to shape or move towards greater alignment in your work?
Contentment (according to Google) is a state of satisfaction. So many things can take us away from it, yet there are many ways to lead us back to it. Having clarity and alignment are ways we can find contentment in our work. To be able to find it, though, we may have to give up on our ego - the one that encourages us to play roles expected to boost our sense of self-worth or the one that teaches us to play small from a lack of self-worth. We may have to give up the fear of not having enough or having too much.
Separating our worth from our work can lead us to find the work that is right for us, where we’re not underselling ourselves or reaching for what isn’t meant for us.
How can you find contentment?
Finding contentment could mean a lot of different things: being clear on what the purpose of your job is in this season, switching careers to a place where there might be a greater sense of alignment and maybe most radical, for me, is choosing not to take on more tasks in hopes for a promotion and instead taking time back from your job to focus on what your calling is in this season.
There is a you-shaped hole in the world, and I hope that's where you are currently placed.
With love,
Toluwa
P.S. Sign up and save the date: Thursday, October 5th - 7:00pm-8:30pm for Q3 reflections.
"...how easy it is to make choices out of external validation when there is a lack of purpose in work"
I can definitely relate to this. Not only a lack of purpose but also confidence in one's purpose in work. It can be difficult when you have no external validation for the work you feel called to do, and tempting to pivot to areas where you can easily gain that. I feel like you need to be really confident in what you're doing and be diligent. But of course, the biggest of all is contentment and protecting one's contentment. phew.