I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, focused on launching a writing and advisory business around personal finance for GenXers. I’m blogging here daily to track my progress. In Tuesday Book Club, I share an idea from a book.
I’ve found that people who seek purpose first tend to find ways to support themselves. But those who are focused on getting “enough money” before they go looking for a sense of mission never feel they’ve got quite as much wealth as they need. I’ve coached people with no money in the bank who’ve managed to fund big life adventures, and people with millions of dollars who kept saying they needed just a little more before they could feel free to go looking for their real purpose.
Martha Beck, Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose
I have a friend who has $5 million saved up. He’s my age. He works at a job he despises. He doesn’t think he has enough.
He has no idea what he’d do if he weren’t working at his technology job.
I wonder if my friend’s situation is common for people who have worked in technology jobs their whole careers and never explored anything different. How do you find authentic purpose when your purpose before has been simply to survive in a cutthroat industry and amass material wealth while you’re at it?
The last time we talked, he said, “I want to find true happiness. I don’t think I’ve ever had it. Have you ever had it?”
I told him I feel true happiness in my life right now. I spend my days doing creative things: blogging, writing newsletter articles, writing and recording podcast episodes, painting abstracts with acrylics, gardening. I have close relationships with family and friends, and I connect with these loved ones often. I participate in in-person art groups, where I build relationships with other artists. I walk homeless dogs at the animal shelter once a week.
While one part of my mind tells me, “you should try to earn more money before you work on all these creative projects,” another part, a stronger part, compels me to keep pursuing what feels true to my core self. I’m fortunate in that my financial situation is already quite comfortable. But as Beck notes, it’s easy to think that the answer to succeeding in finding purpose is to first make and have more money.
Beck is sort of just saying, “do what you love and the money will follow.” That’s too trite and too easy. It’s certainly not advice I’d give to my children (though they do fine without my advice).
This gets back to some of the core questions to be answered by my podcast that I shared in yesterday’s post:
“How do I live richly without working full-time anymore?”
“How much money is enough—and what do I do with it now?”
“What if I want to work again, but not like before?”
“What does a meaningful life look like at this stage?”
I can a couple more core questions to this list:
“How do I find and pursue purpose, when my purpose before has always been to build financial security?”
“How do I let go of money fears when I am pursuing mission and purpose?”